La tamburina

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.

The director is weak, the original story is great. What can I say, I'm an avid le Carre fan! To paraphrase Sidney Bruhl (Michael Caine in Deathrap, 1982) it's a story so good a bad director can't f**k it up. Check out the other comments, I agree with them. Klaus Kinski is great, he chews the scenery, and the supporting cast are all mini-gems. I was trying to decide if I liked Yorgo Voyagis, and I do. He may be too still for some people, but I believe Diane when she falls in love with him. And he has haunted eyes when he has to do bad things which are necessary for the Cause. Diane Keaton is so miscast. She's too old, she can't be an American doing St. Joan in England! She's good, but she can't be Charlie, she just can't. Maybe Helena Bonham-Carter, or Vanessa Redgrave when she was young, oh heck, there must be hundreds of english actresses slavering for this role at that time.

Nevertheless, I love the movie despite Diane Keaton (she does a good job, it's just I can't buy her in the role!).

Professional intelligence case workers appeal to four principal motives to recruit their agents: Money, Ideology, Compromise (meaning blackmail), and Ego, sometimes referred to by the acronym MICE. In THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL, we see a fifth motive used: Screenwriter's Fiat.

Charlie, a little pro-Palestinian Jane Fonda wannabe, is kidnapped by the Israeli Mossad, humiliated, and offered the job of spying on Palestinian terrorists. She accepts because, um, because, well, the screenwriter says so. Okay, so there's a vague effort to make us believe that Charlie's in love with one of the Mossad agents, but since her attraction to him was based entirely on the belief that he was a romantic, dashing leader of the Palestinian `revolution,' there's no basis for her to continue being attracted to him once she learns he's a spy for the Israelis whom she hates.

I'm not sure any woman in the world is quite so easily manipulated as Charlie in this movie. If such a woman really exists anywhere, why on earth would anyone want her as an intelligence agent? Anyone who can be convinced to change sides that easily once can surely be convinced to do so a second time. You wouldn't dare let her out of your sight for ten seconds, and as for allowing her to join a Palestinian terrorist training camp, where she'd be out of sight and in the presence of her old friends for months on end, forget about it. It's absurd. If I were politically correct, I would call it a misogynist movie, but that would probably be unfair. There's no evidence that director George Roy Hill imagined Charlie's weakness and stupidity to be typical of all women.

It's a shame that Charlie is neither a believable nor a likeable heroine, because in every other respect THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL is a great spy movie. I can't say precisely how realistic it is technically, but it feels authentic at every turn. The brutal interrogations of the captured terrorist, and the intense multilayered surveillance of Charlie ring very true. There's no one-man-army James Bond crap here; the Israelis assign a full squad of spies to every job. More importantly it gives us the psychological feel of the espionage profession. The stock in trade of professional spies is the betrayal of loyalty and the abuse of friendship. Naturally, this does not make for likeable characters, however much one may admire the cause for which they work. Hill does not attempt to sugarcoat this; he shows it to us as it is.

Diane Keaton should not be blamed for failing to make her ridiculous character convincing; she is clearly doing the best she can, and quite probably the best that anyone could have. Klaus Kinski steals every scene he gets as Mossad master agent Marty Kurtz. David Suchet gets a fine small role as a terrorist thug.

THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL is a fine example of how outstanding supporting performances, dedication, and sincerity (you rarely find movies this honest in Hollywood anymore) can rescue a movie whose protagonist is badly written. It's not half the movie it could have been, but it's a good movie anyway.

Rating: **½ out of ****.

Recommendation: See it on video or DVD with your friends.

This 1984 film based on John Le Carre's book could well have been written just a few days ago. The confrontation between Israel and Palestine has not changed over the years although the explosive device chosen in the film happens to be a nasty bomb hidden in a suit case and detonated at a distance. Much of the excitement of the story seems to revolve around the preparation and delivery of the suit cases and the spy and counter spy activities.

My reason for choosing this film was to see more of the work of Klaus Kinski (an explosive personality if ever there was one) but in this film he was very much in control. In the role of Kurtz he is responsible for selecting Charlie (Diane Keaton) to spy among the Palestinians. Charlie being a superb actress could handle the job expertly using her feminine charms.

The film has a very large cast...too large in fact...and one tends to get lost amongst all the characters trying to remember which are the Israelis and which are the Palestinians.

The film literally starts with a bang and the search is on to find the perpetrators. As the tension mounts and the bombs explode, one keeps asking, "Who will be next?"

One cannot visualize a happy ending for such a film. While it makes exciting viewing the tragedy is that lives are still being lost each day as the confrontation continues and hopes of peace seem to become even more remote.