Subject: Boy...
I just got hold of THE FOURTH WAR. It was silly enough to be entertaining, but I think you're supposed to be on Roy Scheider's side and his character was too much of a jerk to be sympathetic. I was hoping Jürgen Prochnow would beat the crap out of him. They ended up beating the crap out of each other. I recommend this movie if you drink; it would probably be loads of fun after a few beers.
And Jürgen had a really cool moocow jacket.
Ahhhh, way to waste an afternoon.
That is still a DO-PEY flick, though the central idea of it is one I like. I liked it better this time, as I wasn't approaching it as a "serious" film; as a (rather-turgidly paced) testosterone-bound comedy, it works on its own level. But think what Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny could do with this material. IT'S RUSSKIE SEASON!! IT'S YANKEE SEASON!! BANG!! SLAM!!
They do go too easy on Mizz Double-Agent in the boot-scene though. Jürgen should have shoved her to the floor way harder. And why couldn't they get a real Euro-chick? Her intermittent accent was distracting.
I laughed out loud when our man hit the tree head-first. Is that wrong?
It was fun watching them slug the scheiss out of each other, anyway. Nice head butt, Jürgen! I can't BELIEVE that Jürgen's character wouldn't turn Scheider's sorry grandpa ass into creamed corn in honest hand-to-hand combat, though. No reactionary drunken old American fart is going to be a match for a well-trained Soviet muscle-man.
Jürgen's jaw was almost comically set throughout, don't you think?
That voice-over from Harry Dean Stanton has GOT TO GO, however. Don't tell ME how to interpret what I've just sat through, you hangdog. I got my own crappy little opinions.
A serviceable Saturday afternoon flick, all in all.
[This was my favorite Prochnow film for a long time... and I'm still not sure why. Maybe because Jürgen sneered a lot in this movie. (Fun? Yes. Should the director be slapped around? Oh, yes.) Maybe because he spoke Russian, which is the only foreign language I ever studied throughly. Despite the crack in the Fourth War haiku, he did just fine; he only slipped up once (and Ruth knows squat about that - and who cares anyway?). Although shots of him show up fairly often and there are a couple of extended action sequences with him, he really only has one scene of substance in this film - the one in which he confronts Colonel Knowles in the bar - and that's still one of my favorite Jürgen moments. I think he had a blast filming it. It's a blast to watch.
Another thing I think this movie deserves credit for is the Big Fight at the end. True, it loses all credibility after they end up in the icy lake. Between the jeep wreck and that point, however, it's one of the best knock-down drag-out battles ever. In knee-deep snow, yet! It's exhausting just to sit through. (And I still cringe every time I see Valachev get slammed head-first into that tree. Hey Jürgen, if that was you and not a stunt man, please don't do that again. You're gonna get hurt!) -ed.]