| J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors | Release Date: August 28, 1987 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
|
Positive:
8
Mixed:
5
Negative:
1
|
Critic Reviews
The Fourth Protocol is first-rate because it not only is a thriller, but it also pays attention to its characters and shows how their actions grow out of their personalities. Like Michael Caine's other recent British spy film, "The Whistle Blower," it is effective not simply because it's a thriller but also because for long stretches it simply is a very absorbing drama.
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A near-flawless thriller. [28 Aug 1987, p.1D]
The Fourth Protocol is full of seemingly inside information about the techniques of
spies. And although the film rarely develops as much sustained tension as the
adaptation of Forsyth's "The Day of the Jackal," The Fourth Protocol
does have Caine as an anchor of credibility as well as solid performances as
Russian agents by Joanna Cassidy and Brosnan, who looks here like he would
have made a fine James Bond. [28 Aug 1987, p.A]
The film likewise lurches here and there, but for the most part its aim is true. Action accelerates nicely, a series of pointless cuts to parallel action in Moscow and London provides a false but convincing sense of urgency, and not until the final moments do the filmmakers run out of steam. They have an answer for that, too, in the film's coda. [28 Aug 1987, p.D5]
The movie is entertaining on a
rudimentary, never-to-be-taken-seriously level. On the rare occasions when
it does rise above the material, it's because Pierce Brosnan is chillingly
effective as an assassin with the body temperature of a snake. [26 Aug 1987]
The Fourth Protocol was a great in-flight read, and it will probably
be a great in-flight movie, too-though in a theater it looks a little pale and
overextended. [28 Aug 1987, p.FC]
The Fourth Protocol, based on a Frederick Forsyth thriller, ought to be gripping, but it is merely diffuse, mechanical and overlong. So much windup, so little delivery. [14 Sept 1987, p.82]
As The Fourth Protocol begins at the outside and curls its way into the center of its wildly complex plot, it becomes almost a "Saturday Night Live" spy spoof. We're saturated with detail: Where will the nested Russian folk-art dolls, the visiting violinist's patent-leather shoes and the American Air Force officer's randy wife fit into the Greater Scheme of Things? Gradually, as our eyes glaze over, it becomes very hard to care--and even harder to suppress a giggle.
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