My review was written in February 1990 after watching the movie at a Manhattan screening room.
Events in Eastern Europe have overtaken "The Fourth War", a well-made Cold War thriller about private battling that might escalate out of control. Foreign prospects are better than U. S., for thai John Frankenheimer effort.
Opening title sets the tale in November 1988 on the border of Czechoslovakia and East Germany. Roy Scheider is well-cast as a hardline colonel who's caused nothing but trouble in his career and is now stationed at a post near the border by his general, Harry Dean Stanton.
Soon after taking his new post, Scheider witnesses the murdr of a fleeing defector through no man's land. He rightly blames the Soviet colonel (Jurgen Prochnow) for this dastardly deed and even throws a snowball at him in anger.
From this minor act of outrage ensues a man-to-man feud of Laurel & Hardy proportions, involving blowing up Scheider's jeep and singlehanded invasions of each other's country by the worked-up colonels. Scheider's second in command, Tim Reid, brings a note of sanity to the proceedings, but even his reports to Stanton and Stanton reading the riot act to Scheider fail to halt the hostilities.
Things finally come to a head when Lara Harris, as a Czech working in West Germany who needs help to return home to her child, comes between the two Cold Warriors.
Tightly directed by Frankenheimer with an eye for comic relief as well as tension maintenance, "The Fourth War" holds the fascination of eyeball-to-eyeball conflict. It's not exactly "Hell in the Pacific" but with the shading provided by Scheider and Prochnow on their surface-unsympathetic characters, the film holds its grip.
Problem, as with another Cold War tale "The Hunt for Red October", is simply that an audience can no longer readily feel the imminent danger of WW III in a period of thaw. The chills of a Frnakenheimer classic like ""Seven Days in May" can't be generated by such an outlandish fable. Instead, one can vicariously enjoy a battle of dinosaurs, hardliners (and there are plenty of them still with us in both East and West) who still view the world in simplistic us versus them terms.
Besides the two stars, Reid is very effective as the man on the spot (his commanding officer is out of control), and Harris is convincing as a duplicitous femme fatale. Gerry Fisher's lensing (on Calgary-area locations adequately subbing for Europe) is fluid and especially striking in night scenes, while Bill Conti's rousing score keeps one's pulse running.
Title refers to an Albert Einstein quote: the third world war may involve nuclear weapons, but the fourth will be fought with stones.
