n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Rogue spies try to undermine the Fourth Protocol, which is a secret agreement between the USA, Britain and Russia to cease smuggling nuclear weapons into their respective countries. A Soviet agent is sent to the UK to stage a nuclear accident that could be blamed on the Americans and set off a chain reaction of events to unbalance this stand-off.The Fourth Protocol is based on a novel written by Frederick Forsyth. I have never read it but have read others by this author. His style focuses on the intricate detail of the spy/politics of his thrillers, while his characters contrastingly always seem to be really cardboard, with very little recognisably human about them. With this in mind it's not too surprising that The Day of the Jackal was his most successful book, seeing as the very blankness of the central character was an actual important plot point. But usually this weakness in characterisation is more noticeable. The Fourth Protocol is a quite typical Forsyth spy thriller, in that it has a fairly detailed plot and paper thin characters. Michael Caine phones it in as a Harry Palmer type spy who doesn't play by the rules. It's a quite weak and clichéd character and to be honest Caine doesn't bring much to the table with this one. Pierce Brosnan, on the other hand, is pretty good as the cold Soviet killer. Like in Day of the Jackal, it's this villain who is the more interesting when set alongside the dull heroes, meaning that its actually the bad guy whom we want to succeed, which I'm sure could not have exactly been the original intention. Unlike Caine, Brosnan is playing against type and certainly makes better work of what he is given and is certainly the best thing about the movie. On the whole, this is a pretty standard spy film, with nothing very distinctive about it. Despite its generic nature, it is quite enjoyable though.

A good film, indeed, but not so much of an exciting experience to watch it and those who know Frederick Forsyth's works as novelist are highly familiar on how gripping and thrilling his characters and situations are. But the thing that disappointed me the most is that Forsyth wrote the film script and what I saw wasn't so interesting to make me feel great about it.Well, the story isn't news, again we have a plot where Soviets want to destroy the Capitalist/American system, this time the target is an American base in England. Now, the British intelligence has to find the terrorist before something bad happens. The villain, however, is one man and one man only, a deadly KGB spy (Pierce Brosnan) who has the mission of exploding an atomic bomb on a American military base. The man on his track is the charming agent John Preston (Michael Caine, very good), who has to fight the bureaucracy of his boss (Julian Glover) to finally solve this situation.The problem I had with the film is the awfully number of characters and tiny little situations where I couldn't understand clearly what was happening, some of the characters motivations as well wasn't good presented. The lack of some great action sequences also bothered me a little, but the ones developed were very interesting (the scene where Michael Caine jumps out of the car, then runs to a moving train; and Barry's crazy chase with the van almost hitting the people). The cat and mouse game of "The Day of the Jackal" is inexistent here except for the final moments (here's a writer making a copy of himself. The whole situation is so similar that is beyond belief). The appeal of "The Fourth Protocol" lies in the incredible cast assembled that not only includes Brosnan and Caine but also Ned Beatty, Ray McAnally, Joanna Cassidy (quite effective as Brosnan partner), Michael Gough and others.It's not a case of great performances but all of them have decent parts to play with. Surprisingly strange is the fact of a great director like John Mackenzie, specialist in creating thrilling moments in films like "Deadly Voyage" and "Infiltrator" (both TV movies) seemed a little lost with this script since it's hard to feel some thrill with everything presented (except when Pierce is killing his victims, he's a real stone cold kind of a guy). If the drama is quite hard to follow, the suspense only works for limited moments. But seeing the general picture as a whole you still can have a decent movie, with some good surprises. To me, one random moment that marked me in this film is when Michael Caine beats two racist punks on the subway, that was really awesome. I don't know why it's really in the film but it's a great moment to be seen. It could've been special but it also could've been way worst, just one step in false and this could be a reunion of wasted talents. Gladly, this didn't happened. Fans of Cold War flicks will enjoy it but be prepared for lots of confusing things. 6/10

Frederick Forsythe is always a reliable and successful writer, and many of his spy thriller novels have been made into movies. I would guess that Forsythe provided the inspiration for Tom Clancy and the people who wrote this script. There's quite a bit of technical stuff involved in this story of a KGB spy who is sent to England to detonate a nuclear device at the USAF base at Baywaters, England, the base I always thought was at Bayswater. No matter.The KGB man is Pearse Brosnan and the British counter-terrorism agent who tracks him is Michael Caine, redoing his Palmer number from "The Ipcress File," only with more raucous animation.It's pretty involving. After all, the stakes are high. The explosion will devastate everything within a two-mile radius and kill upwards of 5,000 people.And there are exciting action scenes, especially a van in pursuit of a motorcycle and the inevitable final shoot out, with the wounded Brosnan's fingertip straining to reach the button that will detonate the fiendish device.There are a couple of types of villains in movies like this. One is the suave and debonair type -- George Sanders or James Mason, maybe, in "North by Northwest." Then there's the jocular, almost likable type of killer, always a smile and a wisecrack, like John Travolta in "Broken Arrow" or Jack Nicholson as The Joker. Finally, there's the type that Brosnan fits into in this film -- determined, distant, touched by passions perhaps but only by selfish ones, and absolutely determined. It might be the assassin in "The Day of the Jackal" or Arnold in "The Terminator." Brosnan is actually quite good. He has a pretty face and is capable of an icy demeanor, the kind that brushes away the caressing hand of a pretty neighbor because she doesn't fit into his plans. And there has never been a movie that was torpedoed by the presence of Michal Caine. Caine also gets a bonus point for doing a fine drunk. He's hilarious. He wobbles when he walks and his voice gets high and cracks.I've seen this twice. The first time made more of an impression. The second time, oddly, I found myself getting confused about some of the intricacies of the plot. But it was still enjoyable.

This is a very poor film giving the impression of a director who has no idea what he is doing. The film is a mess without any suspense what so ever. All there is is confusion for the viewer, as if the film maker in some way thought that that would make up for the very poor story. Throughout the film you are waiting for something exiting to happen but the climax never goes as the ending is as bad as the rest of this mess. Just skip this one!