Movie Review: The Little Drummer Girl (1984)

Genre: Espionage Drama Thriller  

Director: George Roy Hill  

Starring: Diane Keaton, Klaus Kinski  

Running Time: 132 minutes  

Synopsis: Agent Martin Kurtz (Klaus Kinski) of Israel's Mossad is eager to capture shadowy Palestinian bombmaker Khalil. He decides to manipulate naive American theatre actress Charlie (Diane Keaton), a supporter of the Palestinian cause, to infiltrate the Palestinian hierarchy. Mossad agent Joseph (Yorgo Voyagis) is tasked with romancing Charlie, and eventually she agrees to help, believing she is contributing to peace efforts. Charlie's assignment is to pretend to have been the lover of Khalil's brother, earning her a stint in Lebanese training camps. But the threat of violence is never far, and Charlie finds herself in harm's way and emotionally conflicted.

What Works Well: This adaptation of John le Carré's novel delves into the long-lasting Middle East conflict with an unapologetically opaque attitude. The Loring Mandel script explains as little as possible, leaving many dots to be connected and encouraging confusion and disorientation as a representation of Charlie's whirlwind experience. She is a minor pawn in a much larger game, but her passion, acting skills, and ability to lie make her a useful fool to be exploited by both sides. Director George Roy Hill maintains good momentum as the action trots across Europe and the Middle East, all moving towards a climax filled with victims but no closer to any meaningful resolutions.

What Does Not Work As Well: Charlie's turning point in eventually agreeing to help the Mossad is relatively unconvincing. Overall, it's quite possible to get completely lost within the mazy narrative. Character definitions, intentions, and allegiances (not to mention names) are slippery and changeable, consistent with the spy world but resulting in a dense cinematic experience.

Key Quote:

Joseph: I've lied to you as little as possible. You're with us for a good reason.

Charlie: Yeah, who's us?

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Movie Review: And God Said To Cain... (1970)

A Spaghetti Western with a stale tale of revenge most brutal, And God Said To Cain... gets lost in the darkness of one interminable night, shadows stalking each other as the stock characters wait for the predictable script to run out of bullets.

Former Confederate soldier Gary Hamilton (Klaus Kinski) is released from prison after ten years of hard labour, for a crime he did not commit. Hamilton was convicted of theft after being framed by Acombar (Peter Carsten) and betrayed by Maria (Marcella Michelangeli), and now he wants his revenge.

A wealthy and influential land owner, Acombar has high political ambitions for his son Dick (Antonio Cantafora), who is not aware of his father's immoral past. In the course of one night with a vicious storm battering the town, Hamilton mounts a one-man assault on Acombar, taking on the full complement of his numerous guards before infiltrating the house for a final fiery confrontation.

Klaus Kinski does bring some acting talent to And God Said To Cain..., his pregnant pauses and stares into the distance confirming Hamilton's acceptance of a descent into hell as he embarks on a killing spree to satisfy his craving for revenge. But the threadbare script by Giovanni Addessi and director Antonio Margheriti offers him little to chew on: once the opening scenes of his release from prison conclude, Kinski does little other than fire his gun at hordes of enemies. Peter Carsten brings a Burt Lancaster-type look to the role of antagonist Acombar, but it does not help him much. He spends most of the film smouldering inside his lavish house as the sound of gunfire echoes outside, before finally picking up a weapon to join the merriment.

On paper, setting almost the entire film over one dark night must have seemed like a good idea to someone. But the execution is quite poor and takes the concept to its worst possible destination. Most of the film consists of Hamilton shooting it out in the dark with faceless, barely defined men assigned to protect Acombar. With no opportunity to play with interesting visuals, Margheriti desperately tries to inject some aural style to the repetitive proceedings in the form of a church bell as a doom-laden warning symbol, and birds of prey fluttering overhead signalling impending retribution for Acombar and his family.

There are some sins-of-the-father-catching-up-to-the-son themes articulated too late to leave an impact, and ultimately nothing can save And God Said To Cain... from its limited scope, as the lumbering action moves with numbing redundancy towards a preordained conclusion.

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Movie Review: A Genius, Two Partners And A Dupe (1975)

Arriving right at the end of the spaghetti western era, A Genius, Two Partners And A Dupe contains elements from both the best and the worst of the genre. The last western that Sergio Leone was involved on, he hated the final product and pulled his name from the movie. A Genius, Two Partners And A Dupe is not all that bad, but it could have been so much better.

Joe Thanks (Terence Hill), a creative quick-draw, teams up with the half-breed bandit Steam Engine Bill (Robert Charlebois) and Steam Engine's girlfriend Lucy (Miou-Miou) to steal $300,000 from the evil and racist Major Cabot (Patrick McGoohan). Not much goes according to plan, forcing Joe to constantly update his strategy to outwit the Major.

Leone directed the opening scene, a brilliantly sly echo of the magical pre-credit sequence in Once Upon A Time In The West, and also co-produced the movie. Otherwise he entrusted Damiano Damiani to deliver what should have been another epic of greed, betrayal, and larger-than-life drama.

Unfortunately, A Genius, Two Partners And A Dupe frequently loses its identity in the quest for laughs to suit the Terence Hill persona. Joe Thanks veers too far towards comedy and audience winks, undermining the serious business of trying to construct a memorably weighty western. The result is a disjointed experience, some epic moments paralyzed by awfully misdirected attempts at slapstick.

Two examples summarize the film shooting itself in the foot: a gun-fight between Joe Thanks and Doc Foster (Klaus Kinski, in a brief role to satisfy the German financial backers of the film) is provided with a long, clever, and intense build-up, only for the scene to be destroyed by a climax not even worthy of the local amateur circus act. Later in the movie, Thanks is captured by Major Cabot and held prisoner at a remote fort, oozing with possibilities. However, the escape scene deserves to be in a Benny Hill skit rather than a serious motion picture.

Some of the Monument Valley scenery captured by director Damiano Damiani is breathtaking, and the score by Ennio Morricone is a definite plus, reaching a breathtaking climax on the superlative Cavalcata. Morricone magically melds Beethoven's Fur Elise with his traditional spaghetti western themes in an act of musical wizardry, as Steam Engine takes control of a team of horses on a runaway wagon and Joe Thanks gives chase.

Leone intended the film to be a recreation of the magical quirkiness of the 1974 French movie Les Valseuse, which featured Miou-Miou with two competing outlaw lovers. But ultimately, A Genius, Two Partners And A Dupe in more of an attempt to bolt the grandness of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly with the coarse comedy of the Trinity movies.  It doesn't quite work, but there is some fun to be had in the trying.

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