Puzzled at ending
I love this film, and I also have the book. But I am puzzled by the ending. Just who double crossed/betrayed who and why? Has anyone untangled it themselves?
shareHere's a link to the Wiki plot synopsis which may explain this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Protocol_(film)
but I'll admit that even after watching the film several times it's not been immediately clear to me just what's up with that. Admittedly I'm always bad with this sort of thing, and frankly I just rode with the performances, which I enjoyed a good bit, and let that part sort of slip by me, lol.
Thanks for the link. I shall now read it and try to untangle the plot! I am much the same in that I just go with the film and don't try to analyse it but I felt it was about time I got to the bottom of this one!
Another 80's UK film the ending of which puzzles me is The Whistle Blower, also starring M. Caine.
I've never seen that one--I much like Caine, so I'll check it out. I have to say that, in some respects, 4thP is almost as confusing as a John LeCarre story--and I enjoy his work a great deal, but again, probably more for his characterizations than the plot proper, which I can hardly ever keep up with.
I've not read the Frederick Forsyth novel of this, and I'm keeping an eye out for a copy to see if I can make more headway with it than with the film's plot.
I think you'll find the book even more complicated than the film! Also, the book has differences from the film in that it was not M Caine's character who broke into the diplomat's safe, and there are other differences.
The film makers took some liberties but it still stands up as a good watch.
Must admit I never could get on with Le Carre. Too complicated for me.
I read the Wiki entry on the novel, and noticed some of the discrepancies; the insertion of the real-life Kim Philby into the story is much expanded on (I was a bit bothered by the film's use of Philby, whisking him offstage so quickly that for anyone not familiar with the Cambridge case, his appearance might have little or no meaning to the viewer). Although the novel would appear to make Petrofsky's doings a tad more comprehensible than the film did, it's still obviously an extremely intricate plot. I was surprised to note that Nigel Irvine apparently turns out to be more of a 'good guy' in the book seemingly than he does in the film, and also has a rather larger role. I wish they'd stuck to that in the film adaptation-- I like Ian Richardson so much, I'd have loved seeing his part be larger, and had him end up on the side of Caine's character rather than the pretty bitter light he's shown in at the end.
This actually does sound tougher than Le Carre, and that's saying a lot, lol.
Another section omitted was the research that Preston did in South Africa into the background of Jan Marais. That took up pages and pages and yet does not appear anywhere in the film.
I guess if they had stuck rigidly to the novel the film would have been about 6 hours long!
It's still one of my favourites, along with the Whistle Blower and Defence of the Realm. We just don't make films like this any more.
Agreed about that. This is one that would have made a good miniseries, but I doubt if Caine could have been got on board for a television production. For having to prune as drastically as they did, I thought they managed to come up with a quite good thriller, though Caine, himself one of the producers, felt that they'd ended up with a script that was more talk than action, and this might have hurt the film's box office. Personally, I felt this made it a far better film than a more heavily action-oriented one would have been. I shudder to think what a version of it made today would be like--probably some Vin Diesel-esque explosions and car chases every three minutes potboiler, with an interminably prolonged sex scene or two thrown in for good measure.
shareVin Diesel - my hero! (joke), and Jennifer Lawrence as the bomb-maker. Perhaps a cameo from J Bieber as Preston's son!!
I don't know if I imagine it but films seem to be so dumbed down these days. Having said which, two ones I've quite enjoyed recently have been 'American Sniper' and 'Zero Dark Thirty'. Both very gung-ho 'America is great' type films but well done nonetheless, especially the latter.
No it's the UK thriller films I miss. I also liked the kitchen sink type ones like 'Saturday Night & Sunday Morning' and 'A Kind of Loving'. But that's a different era altogether.
I don't think it's your imagination--4thP, as it was made originally, would probably never get off the ground today...requires too much thinking on the part of an audience that simply wants things to be blown up spectacularly.
I haven't seen Sniper or Zero--lol, I must be one of the handful of Americans left who couldn't give a toss about the current crop of films in that genre, although I have heard both were better than the average. I've seen a couple of the 'Jason Bourne' films, maybe the closest thing that's been done along the lines of 4thP nowadays, but I don't think any of those films could still come close to this one.
I'm like you in missing the UK type of thriller--more literate, less mindlessly 'action' oriented, and demanding something a little more from the viewer in terms of paying attention to the intricacies of story; not to mention that so many of those great actors are no longer with us, or no longer working (thankfully, Caine isn't in that category anyway).
Wouldn't it be wonderful to see the kitchen sink and realist school of film making come back? Alas, there seems to be no market for it anymore--young audiences want fantasy and endless escapism, and films that engage with reality in a thoughtful way don't seem to have much place at the table anymore.
Hadn't realised you were American.
The problem with kitchen sink/realist type films is that we have too many programmes of that type of TV now in the UK. Ones that portray people on benefits (or welfare) and how they live, how dirty their houses, and low-rent families shouting at each on chat shows (think Jerry Springer!) Therefore there's not much market for actual feature films of that ilk any more. They wouldn't make the money back for the film companies!
Funny you mention that, as we've got our own plethora of 'real people' shows abounding on our television as well. Makes you rather embarrassed to be a 'real' person if the sort typified on these shows exemplifies that. I think a level of prurient interest on the part of the audience in that sort of thing is something of a trans-national phenomenon these days, certainly it seems to be one the US and UK share in.
The sad part is that intelligent writing can transmute these sad stories into art, but art is the one thing hugely wanting on these programs. But the audience for them doesn't appear to be interested in that aspect of it, and unfortunately televised dross does seem to have driven any desire for a more thoughtful presentation of the lives of the poor and desperate out of the marketplace.
It's cheap TV. No decent locations needed, good actors, make up and costume designers. Just a bunch of chavs yelling at each other and moaning about how hard done by they are. And yes, it's prevalent in both the US and UK. I wonder if the rest of Europe has these sorts of programmes, I bet they don't, or not on this scale anyway.
We do have sensitive, serious documentaries but they are rare. There was one recently about loneliness which was very well done. I don't know if you can get BBC2 there but it's on again this Friday at 01.15 a.m. (UK time).
Anyway, I hope Michael Caine stays with us for years yet! We've lost so many this year and it's not even February. Glenn Frey, Lemmy, Bowie of course. And of course, the sainted Alan Rickman.
And the worst of it is, I suspect most of what takes place on these programs is acting as well, only in a very cheapened form. It seems to be what people want now, difficult to imagine what need it answers for them to watch people degrading themselves for so-called 'entertainment'. But, as you say, cheap to produce, and so beloved of the industry I suppose. It certainly doesn't seem as if the demand for it is going away any time soon, and I'd imagine that suits the purveyors of it just fine.
Our public television here in the US sometimes produces work like the documentary you mention (unfortunately, I don't get BBC 2 here, and since I don't get cable or satellite, don't receive BBC America; most of what I get to see of UK import is either via DVD's or what PBS airs; I wish I had greater access to your programming), but it's becoming harder for them as the government, both federal and state, decreases their budget more and more with every passing year. I don't like to think what the media landscape will be like when American public broadcasting disappears from the airwaves, and at this point I think that's become a question of when rather than if. I suppose we'll have nothing left then but cable programming which seems to be more and more steeped in juvenile fantasy, and our broadcast networks, which simply follow cable's trends in even more puerile fashion. It doesn't look too hopeful.
Agreed that it's been a bleak start to the year with this string of all-too-soon deaths. Bowie and Alan Rickman's both really stunned me, and I almost grieved for Alan as somewhat losing a friend. I'd followed his career in film from the outset, and really liked his work and admired what I'd heard of him as a person. I was touched by the way both he and David chose to meet their respective ends with a good bit of dignity--keeping their conditions private, resisting the media circus and 'celebrity deathwatch' ghoulishness, and seemingly letting their creativity sustain them to the end. But it certainly doesn't make the void they both left behind any easier for their fans to fill, and I think they're both talents of a calibre no one will ever replace.
I met Alan Rickman once, years ago it was, in Harrods Book Department on Xmas Eve!
He was browsing and I bought a paperback (ghost stories) especially for him to sign. I approached him politely and he was charm itself!
We don't get cable where we live (Oxfordshire village), only satellite (Sky). I don't watch any of those 'reality' shows, like the Kardashians. Total waste of time IMHO.
Oh what wonderful luck!--and even more so in that it sounds as if he was very good-natured and nice; I'm always glad to hear when an actor or 'name' whose work I like turns out to be a good person in reality as well, since of course we all know that isn't always the case. I always thought he was so attractive in a dashing sort of way. LOL, I don't know if I'd have had the nerve to ask for his signature, so good on you for getting it!
I just won't get cable, since the providers do what in the US we call 'bundling'--making you pay for a whole group of channels, when it's probably only a very few of them you want (likely the same in the UK, I'd imagine). Pretty much the same with satellite; I bought an all region Sony DVD player about a year ago, which allows for streaming Netflix or Hulu, but just haven't got around to subscribing to either yet. Much cheaper than the dish or cable, though, and both do have a pretty wide range of choices, so I may cave and hook up to one or the other this year.
Oh, the Kartrashians. No--just no. I will be very happy when they finally go away, though by then I guess there'll be some other 'reality' star who's equally horrendous to replace them.
Having recently seen the film (for the second time), I've just read the book, which makes things clearer, with the last pages summarising what happened to the main characters.
It was certainly necessary to leave out of the film a great deal of what was in the book, the major implausibility of which was Philby, having been resident in Russia for decades, being able to describe the latest extreme left-wing movements in Britain when drawing up - in two ponderous written submissions - an incredible plot to destabilise the country.
Petrofsky/Ross does not appear in the book until page 180.
Both film and book are enjoyable, but the former does raise some questions, as is evident from other threads
I never saw the point of using Philby as a character. As you say, what knowledge would he have had of events in the West to such extent? Maybe Forsyth wanted to ground the story in greater reality by using an actual historical figure, but Philby was used so implausibly in the book, and so briefly in the film, one has a hard time understanding why a fictional character wasn't settled on instead.
50 Is The New Cutoff Age.