Stylish but barely mediocre overall

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

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.

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, might have been a fine "unknown" choice for the role.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 truly joined the "movement" and was ready to kill for the terrorist group she had infiltrated.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 movie offers a good mixture of action and international intrigue. It is a refreshing departure from the sex and violence offered by other spy movies, particularly the James Bond films. There are no amazing gadgets or blond bomb shells in this film. In their place, we are offered an intriguing plot with interesting moral questions, and an examination of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from both sides of the fence. In this film, the lines between good guys and bad guys blur, just as they often do in real life. Furthermore, the performances, especially those of Klaus Kinski (appearing in a good movie for once) and Diane Keaton are good.

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?