The Fourth Protocol ** (1987, Michael Caine, Pierce Brosnan, Joanna Cassidy, Ned Beatty) – Classic Movie Review 8,170

Michael Caine, Pierce Brosnan, Joanna Cassidy and Ned Beatty star in the 1987 British Cold War spy thriller film The Fourth Protocol, based on the 1984 novel by Frederick Forsyth.

Director John Mackenzie’s 1987 thriller The Fourth Protocol is based on a novel by Frederick Forsyth, and stars Michael Caine, Pierce Brosnan, Joanna Cassidy and Ned Beatty.

Brosnan and Caine play super-smooth spy Valeri Petrofsky / aka James Edward Ross (Brosnan) and down-to-earth British agent spy-catcher John Preston (Caine), who engage in a deadly game of cat and mouse, in this intriguing if slightly weary, old-fashioned adaptation of Frederick Forsyth’s Cold War bestseller.

Brosnan plays a Soviet agent sent to an East Anglian aircraft base to destabilise the nuclear balance of power by detonating a nuclear explosion next to the American base in the UK and of course British agent Caine is the man to stop him.

The support cast is high class and the direction is efficient enough, but there is a lack of tension and surprise in this creaky, antique-style spy movie and it feels like a film that is going through the motions rather than one that really excites, watchable though it is.

Also in the cast are Michael Gough, Julian Glover, Betsy Brantley, Ray McAnally, Ian Richardson, Anton Rodgers, Caroline Blakiston, Joseph Brady, Matt Frewer, John Horsley, Jerry Harte, Rosy Clayton, Peter Cartwright, Sean Chapman, Alan North, Ronald Pickup ,Michael Bilton,Aaron Schwartz, Mark Rolston Michael J Jackson, and Matthew Marsh.

Runtime: 119 minutes.

Michael Caine read the draft manuscript of the novel and suggested to Forsyth that they produce a film of it together. Forsyth wrote the script himself and they hired producer Timothy Burrill and director John Mackenzie.

Release date: 20 March 1987.

It cost $6 million and took $12,423,831 at the box office.

English novelist Frederick Forsyth (25 August 1938 – 9 June 2025) was best known for thrillers such as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Fourth Protocol, and The Dogs of War. More than a dozen of his novels have been filmed.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8,170

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