Movie review: ‘Eye of the Needle’

FloridaGator80

“Eye of the Needle” is a great novel by Ken Follett. It has an excellent story premise that is wonderfully executed with Follett’s top-shelf talent and pretty much teed up a potential winner for any filmmaker. Too bad that “any filmmaker” didn’t make this one as “Eye of the Needle” is nothing but pure disappointment as both a movie and translation of novel to the big screen and there’s even more disappointment from the acting end – and that’s usually just the reverse when filmmakers try to bring an intricate novel to film. “Eye of the Needle” offers a very shallow talent pool of totally miscast and misdirected actors and it is the complete lack of ability by filmmakers to convey the spirit of Follett’s actual good guys that is the iceberg to the Titanic for “Eye of the Needle.”

‘Eye of the Needle’
(1981; 112 minutes; rated R; directed by Richard Marquand and starring Donald Sutherland, Kate Nelligan and Stephen MacKenna)

SHOULDA, COULDA … and NEVER DID!

(NOTE: I expanded this review with some more opinion; a bit more trivia; and the updating of links on Feb. 17, 2017. I again expanded the review on Oct. 30, 2019. I again expanded the review on June 21, 2024, to note the passing of Donald Sutherland.)

“Eye of the Needle” might have been a good espionage film. It isn’t. “Eye of the Needle” could have been a decent World War II film. It isn’t. “Eye of the Needle” should have been a good “frustrated woman gets taken by the wrong guy and gets him back” film. It doesn’t even come close. However, the oddest thing is that while there are a lot of things that it isn’t, “Eye of the Needle” isn’t THAT bad.

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At the helm of “Eye of the Needle” is Richard Marquand and he would certainly bounce back in a big way with his next film: “Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi.” I’m glad that Marquand didn’t leave any good work behind doing “Eye of the Needle” when he made “Return of the Jedi,” but the former could have used even a smidgen of the latter’s greatness. Heck, a smidgen? It could have used a truck load just to be called adequate.

Still, I must admit that I find it watchable for some reason.

“Eye of the Needle” is the story of a Nazi spy in World War II who has discovered the big secret of D-Day: With Operation Fortitude, the Allies have built a fake army in the UK under legendary U.S. Gen. George Patton to deceive the Germans as to where the invasion of Europe will take place (this was a true ruse used by the Allies in WWII). The spy, whose code name is “The Needle,” gets the photographic evidence and now has to make his way back home in time to expose the Allies’ deception.

The parallel story is how British intelligence agents track him to thwart his reaching a rendezvous and leaving via a U-boat.

The final part of the story is how the spy uses a woman during his journey of escape and how her ultimate strength dominates at the end.

The final product of the recipe for disaster for the filmmakers is that they just didn’t have the courage to make any one of the three films that could have been presented.

Marquand does a good job of condensing some of the more detailed espionage parts of the novel and compresses the scope of the book in an intelligent fashion. However, he wastes the talent of leading man Donald Sutherland, who is the spy with a cover name of “Henry Faber” and a penchant to use his stiletto.

Copyright HAG ?2008

Still, the biggest sin of the film is the complete spectrum of filmmaking: dialogue (inadequate), casting (not a single one of the actors should have been cast) and the actors’ work (if you can call it acting). I even dislike the film’s score, which sounds like an amateur night winner from British television in the ’70s … and let me extend my apologies to our cousins the British on this criticism.

The second biggest sin is that the film doesn’t manage to properly balance the spy-war story from the woman who is cheating on her disabled husband with Sutherland after he washes up on the island where the couple have retreated from life after a wedding day crash that left the husband crippled. It’s not that I don’t believe that an emotion-driven spy story isn’t good, but this one just wastes that component. Sutherland was much better five years earlier in another WWII spy tale with a love undercurrent for him – “The Eagle Has Landed” from the Jack Higgins bestseller (click here for my review).

In any case, outside Sutherland, the worst marks are earned by every other actor. They stumble around appearing incompetent and the casting looks like the actors were rejects from dinner theater auditions. Add in the fact that they cannot act worth anything and had nothing to work with to begin with, and you’ll quickly understand why the film fails almost from the first scene.

Here’s a rundown of some of the primary cast:

  • A two-time Golden Globe winner (not for this one), Sutherland looks like he cannot determine how to play the character, or maybe its just an uneven effort because he did not care and was just cashing a check. Sometimes he’s focused and does a good job projecting the Nazi spy, but at others he’s a bit vacant and doesn’t look like he invested in being the spy. He certainly doesn’t project the torrid emotion necessary to properly convey the internal problems his affair with Nelligan brings to the fore. Sutherland is much better than this effort shows and was WWII’s only hippie in “Kelly’s Heroes” with Clint Eastwood (click here for my review); the original “Hawkeye Pierce” in the “MASH” movie; and was particularly creepy in “Panic” (click here for my review). The Canadian-born Sutherland died at 88 on June 20, 2024, in Miami.
  • An Oscar nominee (not for this one), Kate Nelligan tries to turn up the heat playing conflicted wife “Lucy Rose” with couple of sneaky-peeky nude scenes (certainly not as effective being spied on by Harrison Ford while bathing as Kelly McGillis would be four years later in “Witness”), but also muddles around with her character and really never finds her rhythm. The ending with Sutherland could have been so much better if the look on her face reflected the true emotion of the moment instead of looking as if she just realized she’d never successfully complete a Rubik’s Cube. Nelligan was nominated for the unwatchable treacle that’s called “The Prince of Tides” (blame the annoying, talentless Barbara Streisand) and was also in “The Cider House Rules.” Nelligan has not notched a credit since a TV guest spot in 2010.

As to the rest of the cast?

Well, who cares? They don’t distinguish themselves and appear to be rejects from a “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” casting call. The good guys are stiff, excitable and full of themselves while Nelligan’s physically challenged husband (Christopher Cazenove as “David Rose”) makes the effort out of an undistinguished lot, but isn’t given enough to work with. The only successful scene with a supporting cast member is the fight between Sutherland and Cazenove, who was in “A Knight’s Tale” with Heath Ledger.

The bedroom scenes between Sutherland and Nelligan come across as forced and maybe different casting would have brought better results in the chemistry department. I’m not a critic of either actor, as they have the necessary talent, but they’re just not good here together and maybe it’s that lack of chemistry that is the ultimate failure.

“Eye of the Needle” was the 42nd ranked film at theaters in 1981 with $17.5 million in ticket sales, according to Box Office Mojo. The No. 1 film was now legendary, instantly iconic and most-wonderful “Raiders of the Lost Ark” ($212.2 million). Other films from 1981 that I’ve reviewed include:

Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • “Eye of the Needle” is the only Follett novel to be made into a film. Other of his works have been made into television productions.
  • Sutherland was born in Canada (Saint John, New Brunswick) and that makes a Canadian playing a German who’s impersonating an Englishman.
  • Nelligan, too, was born in Canada and her given name is Patricia Colleen “Kate” Nelligan.
  • Marquand died of a stroke in 1987 at the young age of 49, nearly six years after the U.S. premiere of “Eye of the Needle.”
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “A cottage and lighthouse were constructed on the The Isle of Mull for the production of this movie. The set building utilized the skills of a seventy-two year old master thatcher, a local of the island.”
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “This movie is what led George Lucas to hire Richard Marquand to direct Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983). Lucas was mainly impressed that Marquand was able to finish a difficult production on time and on budget, a factor that was critical on a huge production like Star Wars. Lucas also had to hire someone who was not a member of the Hollywood director’s union as he was having a dispute with the Director’s Guild at the time.” My note: obviously his talent wasn’t a driving force although it worked out well in the end for Lucas.
  • Click here for IMDb.com’s extensive trivia page about the movie.

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