La petite fille au tambour

Having read the intriguing novel beforehand, I had looked forward to a film adaption. At that time I always imagined Andrea McArdle, a young Broadway stage actress and the original "Annie" was not only the right age, but had the look and personality of Charlie as described in the book.

Sadly, the casting of Diane Keaton was just a disaster. A choice the entire production never could overcome. Although a good actress, Keaton was about 15 years too old for the role of an ingénue who becomes the obsession of a terrorist, and her pronounced New York accent was too much at times.

The movie follows the novel very closely, perhaps too closely for it's own good. It should nave been about 20 minutes shorter. Still, even at it's full length, the screenplay misses the most interesting moment in the book, where the reader is left to ponder if Charlie has not only infiltrated, but, truly joined the "movement" and was ready to kill for the terrorist group.

The actual production seemed a bit on the cheap side. It appears the director wanted a look of reality, but by 80s standards that meant filming on location using real streets with little local activity to get in the way.

The rest of the cast, except for Klaus Kinski's star turn is totally forgettable.

Finally, over the years I've come to realize, The Little Drummer Girl was a story that was best served on the written page. Too much of the story is internalized in Charlie's mind, and that personal struggle is not easily translated to film.

This film is detailed and occasionally harsh, but told by a master storyteller. the director has modified the John LeCarre novel somewhat, but weaves a strong story. It's a little hard to follow if you don't know much about the world of Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but provides quite an education by its end.

It begins with the assassination (bombing) of an Israeli diplomat and family and then jumps to an American stage actress, Charlie (Diane Keaton), who's currently living in Britain. She is ideologically a supporter of the Palestinian cause. She has a problem with falling in love easily and sympathizing with her lover. You begin to see the wheels turning in Israeli intelligence as they research and try to react to this most recent terrorist bombing.

They skillfully recruit/seduce her by pretending to support the Palestinian movement. To be effective in their scheme, they need someone authentic. They try to get under her skin and into her personal psyche (why she is an actress, pain in her life). Klaus Kinski is superb as the head of the Israeli intelligence effort.

After feeling more confident, they put her work to infiltrate the Palestinian-backed terrorist camps to ultimately get to the almost impossible to find bomber Khalil. This involves serious physical/military training. She excels and is given more and more trusted tasks as the story progresses. The story takes many twists and is very detailed and realistic in it's portrayal of both sides. It gets a little heavy, but is fascinating to watch unfold even a second time.

I give it a solid recommendation.

Apart from a few curious departures from Le Carre's book of the same name the main thing wrong with this film is the casting of Diane Keaton as Charlie. Why the producers saw fit to use a relatively minor American actress to play the key role in this very strong story is something of a mystery, particularly when so many fine European actors were available at the time. Keaton strives to do her best but remains unconvincing throughout the play and her inadequacies are, unfortunately, highlighted by the superb performances from the rest of the stellar cast. Notwithstanding, the film is still well worth watching if only for the performances of Klaus Kinski and the rest of the cast. Plus the strong story line tends to over-ride some of the casting flaws. Moreover, since the film was made in the 1980's it is grittily realistic and doesn't suffer from the mawkish revisionism of recent films about international terrorism. Note: the earlier commentator who wondered why the character of Charlie would have been selected as a intelligence agent, seems to have missed the main point of the story. Charlie wasn't an agent - she was bait.

An English actress, who is widely known for being adherent of Palestinian, is enlisted by the Israelis to catch one of the most dangerous Palestinian terrorists.

A best-selling spy novel (allegedly based on Vanessa Redgrave) from the pen of an exceptionally complex and downbeat author turns to be a superficially very slick, fast-paced and action-packed but vaguely unsatisfactory, long-winded thriller that cheats on both faithful adaptation and real political background. Worth watching for its technical flair and professional handling all round, the content has lost somewhere among the bloodshed.

Diane Keaton stars as an actress who falls for a Palestinian terrorist, only to discover that he's really a Mosad agent posing as a Palestinian terrorist. They want to recruit her to pose as the girlfriend of the real terrorist in order to trap his brother, who is a bigger and badder terrorist. One of a slew of mediocre John le Carré adaptations. The film takes an excessively complex and elliptical approach to unveiling the plot, leaving to viewer puzzled for at least an hour of it's 2 hour running time. Keaton feels miscast, but Klaus Kinski adds quite a bit of life to the proceedings as the main Mosad agent. An extremely young Bill Nighy pops in and out as Keaton's friend.