The Little Drummer Girl

The Little Drummer Girl (1984)

Genres - Drama  |   Sub-Genres - Political Thriller, Unglamorized Spy Film  |   Release Date - Oct 19, 1984 (USA - Unknown)  |   Run Time - 130 min.  |   Countries - United States  |   MPAA Rating - R
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Synopsis by Eleanor Mannikka

Based on John Le Carré's novel by the same name, this story about Charlie (Diane Keaton) a female double agent working between the Palestinians and Israelis, loses some of the excitement and in-depth characterization engendered by the long novel -- mainly because the novel is hard to capture in a two-hour filmed format. But the action itself carries viewers along as Charlie ends up leaving England and her job as an actress in a Brit repertory company to meet Kurtz (Klaus Kinski) in Greece who recruits her as a spy. Charlie later has to handle her own emotions when she gets romantically involved with her Israeli contact (Yorgo Voyagis), though events move her quickly along to a Palestinian military camp near Beirut. Once she has passed herself off as a reliable Palestinian agent and completed her military training at the camp, she goes to Germany to hunt down a Palestinian terrorist (Sami Frey). Filled with a multitude of characters and locations, not to mention camera shots, the intensity of this story is dissipated somewhat by literally and figuratively covering a lot of territory, though the thread of the story itself is never lost.

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Keywords

infiltration, actor, agent [representative], espionage, killing, mistaken-identity, political-intrigue, terrorism