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.

This is one of those films that are normally put into the category of 'interesting failure'. To make a note right up front, the plot is almost impossible to follow. The story concerns the labyrinthine politics of the Middle East and the main character's unsuccessful attempt to make any sense of the issues involved.Unintentionally 'The Little Drummer Girl' reflects the American bewilderment at understanding the almost tribal loyalties of the political situation between Jews and Arabs, which it still finds virtually impossible to comprehend. This is a facile rendering of issues that perhaps are too serious to be regurgitated as entertainment for the masses and for this reason 'Little Drummer Girl' is, to say the least, disappointing. (It does not escape me that I am writing this at the time of the Egyptian uprising of January 2011.) The film opens in the provinces of England where a young American actress (Diane Keaton) is plying her trade on the stage, an unknown personality but pretty and talented. She attends a local meeting of Palestinian sympathisers and is recruited to the Palestinian cause as a secret agent. Or so it seems. The meeting was merely a front for the secret Israeli Mossad agency and she is in fact expected to help the Mossad find a so-called Palestinian terrorist who has escaped their so-called 'justice'. Naturally, being an all-American red blooded girl, she discovers the terrorist's whereabouts and falls in love with this dashing freedom fighter. Keaton then proceeds to blunder around London and the Middle East attempting to trap him because the Mossad is telling her that he is only a murderer of innocent civilians who is getting what he deserves. So, feelings get mixed up with political conviction.If 'The Little Drummer Girl' is to believed, not only this woman, but most Americans in general are an extremely naïve lot when it comes to understanding American foreign policy in the Middle East. The audience as well as Keaton are meant to feel foolish by the mechanics of the plot, in which neither viewer nor protagonist is told a whit about what is going on amidst the mayhem of violence, bombings, and secret double crosses. 'The Little Drummer Girl' can't be accused of being a dull film; on the contrary, it expects too much from the audience: there is too much story to take in; there are no discernible heroics for the audience to cheer on as both sides, Arab and Israeli appear to be ruthless and untrustworthy; and the main character is vacillating, constantly left uninformed and is constantly making the wrong decisions when it comes to trusting any individual. As the audience is meant to identify with her, they end up feeling the same way, ie out of their comfort zone, which is not a good thing for an audience to be feeling.For Diane Keaton this is a demanding part but I believe that she was miscast. To me a better choice would have been someone with more cojones, perhaps Susan Sarandon, or even Jessica Lange (who was probably too young for the part anyway.) Klaus Kinski makes up for this miscasting as he has an important role as the chief of Mossad, a wily character who manages to make the Mossad (seem) likable, and their reactionary politics tolerable for a piece of escapism which this is, despite its pretensions toward being something more important.Directed by George Roy Hill, this was once available on rental video, but I have not seen it anywhere else. 'The Little Drummer Girl' is little more than the sum of its shortcomings. It's about an important subject and it tries to take that subject seriously; its production values are high, there's plenty of action as well as plot and for such onerous subject matter the film is reasonably entertaining. It's a good example of how a film can still retain its entertainment value as a genre entry, and remain something that is worth seeing for curiosity value but it would be a mistake to indicate that it signified anything more than that.If anyone was to accuse 'The Little Drummer Girl' of being Hollywood propaganda, I would not attempt to argue with them.

It's been years since I've seen this movie (or read the book, which I did also), and I'm prompted to say something only because I'm reading a new novel, set in Sarajevo, on roughly the same subject, which brings it all to mind. Quite simply, Diane Keaton (whom I like, sometimes) was abysmally miscast, and since the movie turned around her it hadn't a chance. She was too old, too personally quirky, too American. Charlie is a character whose complexity is that of youthful dumbness mixed with superficial knowingness. There are lot of actresses who could have done it (Natasha Richardson might have been one of them, which would certainly have been interesting), but Keaton wasn't one of them.

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.