The fourth war (1990)

[Neville]

I mentioned this film on another board a few days ago, and I just watched it again. It's one of John Frankenheimer's less known movies, a war movie -of sorts- that stars Roy Scheider as Col. Knowles, a Vietnam vet who's known to have caused trouble in almost everywhere he's been since then.

His last chance, offered by his friend and superior (played by Harry Dean Stanton) is a frontier post between (the both former) Germany and Czekoslovakia. These are the last days of the Cold War, and already in his very first sortie Knowles proves his loose cannon days are not over. Tension erupts, and Knowles throws a snowball (!) to his Czek opponent, Valachev (Jurgen Prochnow). And Valachev is, to Knowles dismay, as unorthodox and on the edge as Knowles is. A private war just started.

While no masterpiece at all (subplots are too obvious, premise too incredible), Frankenheimer does best when he is allowed to use the plot as a character description. In this aspect, the film clearly succeeds. Scheider nails the character, and the film is also a quite serviceable parable on the Cold War, while critics of militar mentality will find some food for though in Valachev and Knowles' attitudes, which seem, at least partially, the result of many years of frustration as well as training for the wrong battles. As one character says early on the film, there's no military academy that teaches how to deal with defeat.