The Fourth Protocol (1987)

Glasses: No

Doing an Accent?: No

Accent for whole film?: N/A

Hair: Restrained

Does he point at someone?: Yes, see below.


Best line: "Acting Head, Sunshine. And if you ask me, you're acting like a complete arsehole!"

The Fourth Protocol. A Frederick Forsyth. Another spy film. Another one! Caine must have had easy selection in this genre, I suppose. In the same way I suppose someone like Connery would always have a role available in the spy genre if he chose to. Speaking of Bonds, this ones also got future 007 Brosnan in it, as a cold good looking utterly ruthless Russian agent.

Apparently, this one came about through Caine reading the manuscript and suggesting to FF that they produce the film together, then the money didn't happen so they passed the project on to other directors, confirming our suspicion that Caine must love spy stories as he seems to spend a lot of time in them.

Its standard cold war fare really. Russians, bombs, passing of secrets, "the old boys on both sides get along really", tight arses in charge, our man out hunting for the agent, so if you want a 1980s spy/terrorist film set around London and consisting of the normal set pieces for this sort of "THERES A RUSKI LOOSE WITH A NUKE!!" scenario, this is well worth your time.

Upper end of the scale. Not too bleak, not too light, fairly action packed and some good "corridors of power" scenes. Plus theres a bit of SAS action, which is always a plus. Sorta similar to Jackal, I suppose.

Good score too. Was enjoying greatly when the credits were rolling at the outset and the name came up........Lalo Schifrin. Say no more! I know Morricone is the boss there, but I actually prefer Schifrin of the two.




1. Straight in, first appearance and we've got a rat arsed Caine to contend with. Classic.

(Peter O'Toole just out of shot, probably)

Hammered, pure hammered.........or is he?

Excellent character introduction, most excellent. Well played all.

2 - A traditional bollocking. It seems as though in all of his spy films, Caine gets dragged in for a bollocking by his superiors. Well, assumed superiors. This one, he's less nonplussed than Harry was and willing to give it back (see: best line)

Some fine pointing in this scene. Some fine ragin' at The Man whilst prowling the room. Some fine glassy eyed howls of torment.

 

 

(Julian Glover visibly shaken)

A lesson from the master in how to rachet it up to 11 on demand.

Of course, Caine then does what we all do after leaving work in an irritable mood and gets into a punch up on the tube home.

Lesson - Do not be a thug on the tube when the following people are on board reading the newspaper:

1 - Charles Bronson

2 - Michael Caine

3 - TBC

3 - How'd you like your jackets? Puffy?

4 - Pierce Brosnan is a dick.

Getting a female agent drunk whilst she's supposed to be working:

Seducing your wife whilst you are at the bar getting him a drink:

 

 Spying on your wife:

Spying on his local swinger party:

 

 

 

 

 Posing in his XR3i

Yes, I know he's supposed to be a calculating killer of the coldest coldest blood, but does he have to be so much of a prick about it?

4 - Theres a lot of Ipcressian touches in this film, mainly based around use of locations and nods to scenes from the earlier film. Nice little gesture and not showy.

5 - This film contains both the old model and the new model transit van.

 

I don't know why that makes me happy, but it does.

 So, a good story, plenty of plotting going on, good performances, a gorgeous looking London and a plethora of minutae = a bit of winner

.

Outfit of the film. Turtlenecks, turtlenecks all the way down.