The Fourth Protocol

This adaptation of Frederick Forsyth's espionage thriller is neither fish nor fowl. Brosnan, who plays the ice-cool and ruthless Soviet undercover agent sent to an East Anglian American airbase to execute a 'devastating' plan to destabilise Anglo-American nuclear cooperation, poses and pouts so much that there are hopes of the film developing into a Bond-like spoof. No such luck. Still, Caine - a kind of middle-aged Harry Palmer - is at his shambling best as the no-nonsense spy-catcher overcoming the deviousness or incompetence of his Intelligence bosses; and MacKenzie gives this home-grown blockbuster the requisite glossy, if predictable finish. What is missing is any real tension or psychological detail that might lend plausibility to all the hocus-pocus about East-West political and military intrigue.