Our adventures through the film work of Michael Caine lead to Frederick Forsyth adaptation, The Fourth Protocol. Spoilers… Michael Caine showed no sign of slowing down as he entered his third decade as a leading man. The 1980s would see him win his first Academy Award (Hannah and Her Sisters), tackle new genres such as ... The 1980s films of Michael Caine: The Fourth Protocol (1987)
Our adventures through the film work of Michael Caine lead to Frederick Forsyth adaptation, The Fourth Protocol. Spoilers…
Michael Caine showed no sign of slowing down as he entered his third decade as a leading man. The 1980s would see him win his first Academy Award (Hannah and Her Sisters), tackle new genres such as horror (The Hand) and shark-based revenge movie (Jaws: The Revenge) whilst continuing to work with interesting new auteurs like Brian De Palma (Dressed to Kill) as well as old friends from classic Hollywood such as John Huston (Escape to Victory).
Film by film, I’ll be taking a look at Caine’s 1980s filmography to see what hidden gems I can unearth alongside the more familiar classics…
Spoilers for The Fourth Protocol lie ahead…
Directed by:
John Mackenzie (The Long Good Friday, The Honorary Consul, Ruby, Quicksand)
Other Featured Geezers:
Pierce Brosnan as Major Valeri Alekseyevich Petrofsky, Ned Beatty as General Pavel Petrovich Borisov, Julian Glover as Brian Harcourt-Smith, Michael Gough as Sir Bernard Hemmings, Ray McAnally as General Yevgeny Sergeyevich Karpov, Ian Richardson as Sir Nigel Irvine, Anton Rodgers as George Berenson.
Tagline:
If the Fourth Protocol is ever breached, there would be no warning, just a nuclear explosion from a bedsitter…The unthinkable has just begun…
What’s it all about, Alfie?:
Caine plays hard-headed MI5 officer John Preston, great at his job but prone to clashing with superiors, who ends up being the only one who can track down and stop undercover KGB officer Major Petrofsky (Pierce Brosnan). Petrofsky is planning on detonating a nuclear explosion at an American airbase in England, thus jeopardising the US/UK special relationship whilst strengthening the Western anti-nuclear movement, and ultimately benefiting the strategic position of the Soviet Union.
The fourth protocol of the title refers to the fictional secret protocols included in the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The fourth protocol was the prohibition of non-conventional delivery of nuclear weapons. Petrofsky has no respect and is breaking this protocol all over the place, transporting nuclear items in shoes etc like the naughty Soviet lad that he is.
Caine-ness: Caine is top billed, in an unfetching all lowercase red font, and we first see him seven minutes in when a security guard spots him on CCTV drunkenly stumbling around on New Year’s Eve.
This is a ploy for canny Caine to gain access to an apartment building by pretending to be a sozzled reveller. When asked by the guard for the address of the party that he’s attending he mumbles; “Don’t worry, I’ll follow the noise” and wanders off. Us viewers then see his expression change to a more sober, down to business one, before he indulges in a spot of festive lockpicking at a wreath-adorned door.
This is a fun introduction to Caine’s character, John Preston, as we see him expertly going about his spy business.
Once inside the flat he stops the alarm with some improvised electrical engineering and then sets up an elaborate water in a bag contraption, wired up to the electricity mains, to blow a safe during the midnight chimes so that neighbours won’t notice in the midst of celebratory fireworks. This is all soundtracked by what appears to be the 24/7 German dancing channel that he’s put on the telly, which consists of polka music and people occasionally camply going ‘woohoo’.
This is rough-and-ready working-class Caine. He’s a roguish down-to-earth charmer and clashes with his ineffectual stuck-up boss, acting-head of MI5 Brian Harcourt-Smith (Julian Glover).
Harcourt-Smith bemoans that Preston “consider[s him]self outside the normal chain of command” but Preston is unfazed by this dressing down, and Harcourt-Smith ends up coming off looking like the unprofessional plonker with his childish yell of “do it!” before storming out of what I assume is his own office and slamming the door.
Preston’s rebellious behaviour gets him demoted to working in airports and ports or “airports and bloody ports” as he refers to it in signature Caine style and, eventually, he’s suspended entirely for insubordination when pointy angry Caine is unleased and he reminds Harcourt-Smith that he’s not head of MI5, he’s “acting head, sunshine”.
It seems that Preston is a widowed father as we never see his wife, but he momentarily looks over at a badly Photoshopped picture of him with her and their son. Although perhaps she is alive and left him because of his poor Photoshopping skills. Like all good movies, this is an enigma left up to the viewer to decide.
Preston is a good father who loves his son. A son who has a bad haircut but a good taste in posters (he has a big Muppets one featuring Caine’s upcoming co-stars in his room). There’s genuine warmth and charm when Preston is making his son laugh. It’s a shame that he’s doing it by making fun of foreigner’s complicated names that he’s found during his work research, but at least he’s finding time for some light father/son bonding xenophobia amidst his busy workload.
The film ends on a literally uplifting image of him raising his son in the air “Where are we going?” his son ask “Home” Preston responds. He may now be deeply disillusioned with his superiors, and his work, but he still has his home life, and it ends on a happy note unlike the more realistic downbeat ending of The Whistle Blower.
Caine is fun to watch as always, but coming after the tour de force performance of his last role, he’s coasting a little more here. It’s not a part that requires him to flex his acting muscles and he is ultimately somewhat overshadowed by Brosnan and the film’s colourful side characters.
Caine-nections*: This is the second film in the row made by the Rank Organisation after The Whistle Blower. That’s not the only thing that these films have in common. Both reference Kim Philby (and Caine also played a character inspired by Philby in The Jigsaw Man, 1983), both contain scenes where Caine’s character pretends to be drunk, and he also plays a loving father in both.
The writer credited with ‘screen story’, George Axelrod, wrote another of Caine’s 80s thrillers; The Holcroft Covenant (1985). Alas, given his name, Axelrod sadly never worked with Vin Diesel on one of the Fast And Furiouses.
Petrofsky meets his fake wife getting off a coach outside the Royal Albert Hall, a location that was memorable used in Caine’s most iconic spy movie The Ipcress File (1965).
Caine and Michael Gough, who has a one scene cameo as the ailing MI5 head, both would go on to play Batman’s butler Alfred Pennyworth.
Julian Glover was in The Magus (1968).
John Mackenzie also directed Caine in The Honorary Consul (1983).
Composer Lalo Schifrin worked on The Eagle Has Landed (1976).
*I’m only counting from Caine’s first starring role in Zulu onwards.
Best Non-Caine Actor:
Pierce Brosnan is second billed and the co-lead with roughly as much screentime as Caine even though they don’t meet until the very end, and then only briefly as Brosnan promptly shoves Caine into a cupboard and Caine rightly gives him a good smack to the face back.
Brosnan reunites with director John Mackenzie who gave him his first feature film credit in The Long Good Friday (1980). Since then, Brosnan had made a name for himself as the titular Remington Steele in the American detective show that ended its run the year of this film’s release. It was still a little while before he’d get that iconic film role that he’s now most intrinsically associated with; Stuart Dunmeyer, Sally Field’s new lover whom Robin Williams throws fruit at in Mrs Doubtfire (1993).
Brosnan first appears five minutes in as Major Petrofsky, looking very dashing in his Russian military attire, and making me think for a moment that I was watching Goldeneye (1995), but that wouldn’t be for another eight years. He spends the bulk of the rest of the film pottering around on his motorbike collecting nuclear bomb elements, occasionally killing people and once going bowling which gives him the opportunity to bowl a strike and then do a sexy turn to face camera and pout.
This role is a great audition tape for Bond (Petrofsky even uses the pseudonym ‘James’), especially the ruthlessly professional killer side of Bond. Petrofsky is not very quippy though. “Do you get bored too Jimmy? Bored stiff?” his neighbour’s wife seductively says to Petrofsky as she runs her hand up his leg. “I ought to be getting back” he responds, shutting her down and actively running away from the innuendos.
So, there are some Bond aspects that are not quite there yet. The car that Petrofsky is driving is also significantly less sexy than anything that Bond would be seen in, and the fact that he’s dressed like Mr Bean whilst driving it certainly doesn’t help either.
Unlike Bond, Petrofsky is not as good with the ladies and has a nasty case of blue balls throughout much of the movie. It’s at its worst when he’s looking out at his neighbours’ swinging party whilst he sadly sips on a scotch alone.
When he tries it on with his fake wife after she asks where he will be sleeping; “We’re husband and wife remember”, he’s promptly rebuffed; “I think not comrade major” and she takes her bags to the other bedroom. Although after eventually charming her with his sensual bomb assembly, heavy lifting skills, and tight white t-shirt, he does manage to turn things around and get his leg over.
The film’s least successful creative decision is the undisciplined accent free-for-all. Admittedly lots of dodgy Russian accents can sometimes get a little silly, but at least you know exactly where each character is meant to be from. In a geopolitical thriller like this, awash with lies and double crosses, that is important.
However, everyone here seems to be doing whatever accent they like with absolutely no discernible reason behind it. Irish actor Ray McAnally is playing a Russian but puts on a generic American accent in scenes alongside actual American Ned Beatty playing a Russian but sort of doing a Russian accent but then again not quite.
Considering that Brosnan’s character is an undercover Russian who IS meant to putting on an English accent it makes it doubly confusing because I, at first, wasn’t sure if these other Russian characters were actually Americans pretending to be Russians within the world of the film.
Speaking of Beatty, he gets the prestigious “with” credit for his small role which, sorry Ned, was undeserved. It’s not a bad performance but it’s also one that wasn’t worth drafting in a big-name for. He’s distracting as he doesn’t fit the role, or add anything special to it, unlike John Gielgud and his small but impactful cameo in The Whistle Blower.
Alternatively, Ian Richardson, perhaps best known for his role in the original BBC House of Cards, is a highlight with his icily cold monologue dressing down the government official and his “schoolboy politics” and “idiotically conceited faith in [his] own importance” who has leaked confidential files. In an effortlessly calm manner imbued with a sinister edge he lays out the man’s options; “Some of our more muscular colleagues favour taking you to a cell and going to work on you with a carving knife and a pair of plyers, the rest would like to feed you to the newspapers and throw what’s left into prison for 20 years. It’s a tricky choice, isn’t it?”.
Then on the sidelines of the cast are a smattering of stars from television comedy such as May to December’s Anton Rodgers, To the Manor Born and Waiting for God’s Michael Bilton (as Kim Philby!) and Max Headroom’s Matt Frewer.
My Bleedin’ Thoughts: This is based on a 1984 novel by Frederick Forsyth, which in turn inspired a 1985 video game for the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64. Apparently, it was quite a good game! The Fourth Protocol “interactive fiction” video game saw you take the place of John Preston and according to a contributor to the gambase64 website it’s “a really involving adventure with some arcade overtones” and it even “kicks off with an amazingly crips-looking title screen and fantastic music, just about the best I’ve heard on the 64 yet.” Strong praise indeed!
There’s talent galore behind and in front of the camera, with Mission Impossible theme creator Lilo Schifrin delivering a solid score and The Day of the Jackal’s Frederick Forsyth writing the screenplay based on his own novel with assistance from George Axelrod, who wrote one of cinema’s best conspiracy thrillers, The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Outside of The Long Good Friday director John Mackenzie arguably never had another project that properly utilised his talents, but he managed to bring style to material that was slightly beneath him.
There’s not much action, but what is there is well filmed such as when Preston’s car screeches up the railway platform beside a departing train and he rushes out and jumps onto it as it starts leaving.
Slightly more confounding is when we later see the same train depart from another station and Preston is revealed to be standing on the track behind it for some reason. No idea how he got off and ended up there. Also, it’s not safe. I know he doesn’t play by the rules but he still should obey basic railway safety.
In his autobiography, What’s It All About, Caine reflected on how the film turned out; “The book was very wordy and a little short on action, and although I tried to get Freddie who was writing the screenplay to try to turn the ratio around a bit, it is very difficult for a writer to cut his own lines. We wound up with a wordy action movie which, although it was quite a good picture and did fair business, never had the speed and pace of the best American action movies. I remember an American once saying to me that Americans made moving pictures and the British made talking pictures and I agree with him.”
He goes on to elaborate; “We had scene after scene where we cut away […] to other characters in Russia who appeared to be in another movie altogether […] every time they address each other they start the sentence with the other fellow’s full, long and unpronounceable patronymic, so for long sequences in the film we not only had a talking picture, but a lot of talk, and even worse, most of it unintelligible.”
Caine is exaggerating, it’s not that bad, but admittedly the film as a whole is overly talky which is a problem when the dialogue isn’t particularly interesting.
This film is reasonably enjoyable though, it passed the time, but it’s not hugely memorable when compared to Caine’s other espionage joints. The Jigsaw Man was objectively a worse made movie, but it got so bizarre at times that I had much more fun with it. The Whistle Blower was perhaps less slick but had a more engaging and emotional story at heart. And, of course, this is nowhere near the quality of Caine’s original Harry Palmer trilogy.
Trivia (Courtesy of IMDB): The Radio Moscow presenter reading the news broadcast, who says the trigger word “Colonel Gaddafi”, is Frederick Forsyth.
In addition to the obvious Bond connection with Brosnan, Julian Glover was the villain in For Your Eyes Only (1981)and the same air base, RAF Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire, was used as a location in Octopussy (1983) as well as The Fourth Protocol.
This production had a royal visit from Prince Michael of Kent, which I imagine was a disappointment for all concerned.
Overall Thoughts: Serviceable spy nonsense. Caine has been in significantly better, and significantly worse but consequentially more entertaining, films of a similar ilk and so this fails to leave much of an impression. However, it’s enjoyable enough and it’s fun to see a young Brosnan being a pre-Bond Russian rotter.
Rating: 3/5 Protocols
Where You Can Watch This: At the time of writing, it’s currently available to watch for free in the UK on the U streaming service, to purchase or rent digitally from all the usual places, or to purchase on DVD and Blu-ray .
Up Next: This time it’s personal, as Caine used his fee to buy his Mum a house, it’s Jaws: The Revenge.
