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Too much of everything

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I recently saw "The Little Drummer Girl" on DVD and liked it a lot. Diane Keaton is at the heights of her powers and Klaus Kinski is convincing as Martin Kurtz (a possible reference to Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"), a lead Israeli intelligence operative. All of the acting, direction, and cinematography are competent or better. Roger Ebert and others have downgraded the movie because of the complexity of its plot. To me, the plot is not the true focus, any more than it is in Raymond Chandler novels. What the movie is really about is the power of acting and the ways in which actors love and are consumed by their roles.The one who loves and becomes consumed is Charlie, the Diane Keaton character. She is a star actress in a British repertory company who overwhelms colleagues and audiences by her ability to bring roles to life. She is also an enthusiastic partisan of the Palestinian cause who we see raising her voice with dramatic intensity at a public meeting. By doing this, she becomes a person of interest to an Israeli intelligence operative who recognizes her potential for his side. The Israelis kidnap her and promise to release her after they've told her what they want and what they can offer.What they can offer is the acting opportunity of a lifetime, and one that will give her an opportunity to influence events in the real world to a far greater extent than by her flamboyant participation in demonstrations. She says that all she really wants is a just settlement and peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Kurtz agrees with her, and says that they want these things as well but that extremists on both sides are hurting the efforts of both reasonable Palestinians and reasonable Israelis. By using her talents to work for them, he says, she can help to make what she wants possible.The role of a lifetime turns out to have a dual character at which she excels. She is able to adopt both Israeli and Palestinian causes and, after extensive training from both sides, to gain the confidence of a key Palestinian terrorist. Sex plays a significant part although we are spared shots of nude bodies in motion. There's bloody violence and the film's eventual ending can be seen as a comment on the limitations of great acting.

This is the best movie ever made about counter-terrorism. John LeCarre had obviously done his homework on Operation "Wrath of God," the Israeli operation to track down and eliminate the perpetrators of the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre, when he wrote the book this film was based on. The fact that both the 1972 Olympics were in Germany and much of the film is set (and filmed) in Germany only scratches the surface of the parallels. The trade-craft of covert operations in "The Little Drummer Girl" is so realistic the picture could be used as a training film. Klaus Kinski is particularly excellent as the chief of the Mossad team. I hope to see "The Little Drummer Girl" on DVD soon.

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.

A perfect movie.A perfect adaptation of the Cornwell/LeCarre novel. Perhaps the movie might be hard to follow if one had not read the novel; I don't know. A perfect lesson in the War on Terror. As timely as when it was made. Maybe more so.My only complaint: Why no DVD?