An American actress with a penchant for lying is forcibly recruited by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, to trap a Palestinian bomber, by pretending to be the girlfriend of his dead b... Read allAn American actress with a penchant for lying is forcibly recruited by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, to trap a Palestinian bomber, by pretending to be the girlfriend of his dead brother.An American actress with a penchant for lying is forcibly recruited by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, to trap a Palestinian bomber, by pretending to be the girlfriend of his dead brother.
- Awards
- 1 nomination total
- Julio
- (as Juliano Mer)
- Director
- Writers
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Featured reviews
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.
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.
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.
Nevertheless, I love the movie despite Diane Keaton (she does a good job, it's just I can't buy her in the role!).
Did you know
- TriviaSource novel author John le Carré appeared in this movie under his birth name David Cornwell and not as John le Carré. This film was the first appearance by le Carré in a filmed adaptation of one of his books. The second would be in La taupe (2011) twenty-seven years later.
- Quotes
Martin Kurtz: Where would you have us go Charlie? Maybe you would prefer us to take a piece of Central Africa or Uruguay? Not Egypt, thank you, we tried that once and it was not a success. Or back to the ghettos?
- How long is The Little Drummer Girl?Powered by Alexa
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $15,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $7,828,841
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $2,632,719
- Oct 21, 1984
- Gross worldwide
- $7,828,841
- Runtime
- 2h 10m(130 min)
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1