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After watching THE FOURTH PROTOCOL, I'm left wondering why British actors seem to make the most accomplished spies in releases for the Silver Screen, both big and small. In my mind, the top trio is Michael Caine (as Harry Palmer), Sean Connery (as "007"), and Alec Guinness (as George Smiley). Perhaps it's because, in real life, the UK's international spy agency, the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), has so much more traditional panache than the Yanks' CIA. In MI6, martinis are no doubt "shaken, not stirred". It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the drink of choice in the Central Intelligence Agency is simply light beer. Here, Michael Caine plays John Preston, a domestic Security Service (MI5) agent on the wrong side of his boss. After being banished to Ports and Harbours, Preston stumbles across evidence that the Soviets are smuggling an atomic bomb into the UK. And indeed they are, as part of a renegade plot by KGB Director Govershin (Alan North) to re-heat the Cold War during the days of détente in the late 1980s. Govershin's infiltrates his superagent, Valeri Petrofsky (Pierce Brosnan), who's assumed the English identity of James Ross, to co-ordinate assembly of the explosive device next to a U.S. air base that stores nuclear bombs. Detonation of the Red nuke will thus be blamed on American carelessness, causing stress on the Anglo-American alliance. More than a decade after the collapse of the U.S.S.R, the plot of THE FOURTH PROTOCOL, which is above average in entertainment value, approaches being quaint, though the danger of a "suitcase nuke" remains real enough in today's world of pan-national terrorism. The real joy of the film is watching Caine's portrayal of the cheekily insubordinate Preston. (Cheekiness is what defines Caine's acting style and makes him so consistently engaging.) Brosnan's Petrofsky/Ross is baby-faced and not much beyond just sullen. Pierce has yet to acquire the patina of age that makes him one of the better, though never the best, James Bonds. (Brosnan, sure and begorry, was born in the Republic of Ireland, and is decidedly not British. Perhaps his best spy role - and it was truly excellent - was as the Bond-gone-to-seed secret agent in THE TAILOR OF PANEMA.) Also eminently watchable is Ian Richardson as the MI6 wallah who has more use for Preston than the latter's boss. (Richardson, if you recall, played the Soviet's mole in MI6 in the refreshingly intelligent TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER SPY, in which Alec Guinness debuted as superspy George Smiley, my most favorite of that actor's screen roles.) I'm always mesmerized by Richardson as his character of the moment swings from smooth charm to understated menace. Michael Caine's ability to play a believable spook has evolved over a continuum from such of his early films as FUNERAL IN BERLIN and THE IPCRESS FILE to the relatively recent THE QUIET AMERICAN. Whereas Sean Connery has abandoned the genre, and the late great Alec Guinness limited his participation to TTSS and SMILEY'S PEOPLE, Caine continues to venture into the espionage shadow world and THE FOURTH PROTOCOL is a rewarding mission impossible from the past. |
