
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 24, 1990                   TAG: 9003242498
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: TOM JACOBS LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

`FOURTH WAR' IS JUST ONE TOO MANY

Contrary to reports published elsewhere, "The Hunt for Red October" is not the final Cold War movie. Here comes another already: "The Fourth War," a sincere but ultimately ludicrous military drama.

The new John Frankenheimer film concerns a gung-ho U.S. Army colonel named Jack Knowles (Roy Scheider).

Knowles, who still hasn't gotten over the Vietnam War, is constantly itching for a fight. But since we aren't involved in any wars at the moment, he's stationed at the West German-Czechoslovak border.

Bad luck: On the other side of the line, there's a Russian officer much like him. Col. N.A. Valachev (Jurgen Prochnow) is a veteran of Afghanistan, and he, too, feels a bit lost without a good war to fight.

That being the case, these two slightly crazy commanders begin a little war of their own. Knowles throws a snowball at Valachev; he misses. Then he sneaks across the border in the middle of the night and humiliates some of his soldiers.

Valachev, in turn, blows up Knowles' jeep, and . . . well, you get the drift. The drama here is whether these two hotheads will accidentally set off World War III.

Needless to say, this all feels extremely dated, as well as extremely implausible.

The film is full of strong performances (Tim Reid, as Knowles' second in command, is a standout), but its message is as heavy-handed as its plot is absurd.

Frankenheimer, a veteran director, does what he can, but much of the dialogue is beyond saving. As in "Red October," the banal screenplay is spiced up with bits of laughable pseudo-poetry, as in this exchange between Knowles and his superior officer, played by Harry Dean Stanton:

Scheider: "In my career, I've played on the black keys and on the white keys. Now you're asking me to play in the spaces between the keys!"

Stanton: "That's it exactly."

Probably took the words right out of his mouth. `The Fourth War' A Cannon Pictures release playing at the Salem Valley 8 (389-0444) and Valley View Mall 6 (362-8219) theaters. Rated R.

by CNB