Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

The Little Drummer Girl Blu-ray Movie Review

Spy vs. spies.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III August 7, 2024

How good can a movie be if it has a bad main performance? In the case of George Roy Hill's The Little Drummer Girl, the answer is "sort of". Based on a then-recent eponymous spy novel by John le Carré (which was later adapted into a better 2018 TV mini-series directed by Chan-Wook Park), this 1984 film generates sporadic levels of intrigue thanks to decent supporting performances and terrific location footage... but ultimately, it never truly gets its head above water. Diane Keaton is woefully miscast as a young anti-Zionist actress named Charlie who's kinda-sorta tricked into joining "the other side", and she's easily the least interesting thing about this otherwise good-not-great thriller.

The Little Drummer Girl's screenplay, written by Loring Mandel, tries to condense just about every detail from le Carré's original novel into its 132-minute narrative, leading to an overlong drama that nonetheless feels rushed and frequently confusing. But the meat and potatoes of its story follows Charlie from the modest lights of theater acting -- where she's heralded as supremely talented, but I sure didn't see it -- to beautiful Greece where she reluctantly stars in a series of wine commercials. Unrelentingly outspoken, Charlie's strong anti-Zionist convictions had previously led her to a lecture given by the masked brother of a PLO bomber named Khalil (Sami Frey). She believes this mystery man is the same person who appeared at her most recent play and even followed her to Greece for the commercial shoot... but Charlie's shocked to eventually learn that the whole thing was an elaborate ruse for the Israeli Intelligence Agency to recruit her as a double agent. Her admirer, a man named Joseph (Yorgo Voyagis), was obviously in on it too... as was the group's leader, Martin Kurtz (Klaus Kinski), who originally approached her backstage with the travel opportunity.

My immediate knee-jerk reaction to The Little Drummer Girl doesn't seem too far removed from a general consensus upon its 1984 theatrical release: it feels rushed, several portions of its plot are poorly explained and, clearly above all else, Diane Keaton -- here pushing 40 -- is simply not a good fit for the novel's main character, who's supposed to be in her 20s. Keaton's dialogue delivery, facial expressions, and demeanor are all distractingly quirky from start to finish, especially during her character's brief fling with "Joseph" before the big reveal, and the way she almost immediately switches sides stands in sharp contrast with Charlie's previous convictions. It's kind of a shame, too, because almost everything else about The Little Drummer Girl -- the gratuitous twists and turns, international locations, and cinéma vérité atmosphere -- are all good to very good, as it only really falls short in the pacing department. Le Carré's typically dense novels certainly aren't unfilmable (see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Russia House, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and maybe even The Constant Gardener), but the right approach wasn't taken here and it shows.

With a better screenplay and more careful casting, The Little Drummer Girl probably could have stood alongside the author's best showings on the big screen; as it stands, it's nothing more than a curiosity and probably for enthusiasts only. Regardless, it's good to see the film on Blu-ray courtesy of Warner Archive, whose dependable white-glove A/V treatment as least lets us appreciate The Little Drummer Girl's workmanlike visuals and sound.

The Little Drummer Girl Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, Warner Archive's new and exclusive 1080p/SDR transfer of The Little Drummer Girl plays to its strengths with a sturdy, film-like appearance free from obvious wear-and-tear while sporting rich, organic textures perfectly in-line with the decade of its release. Color representation is quite good with plenty of earth tones and muted colors dominating the film, although much more vivid tones arrive with specific costumes and backgrounds, not to mention infrequent explosions. Fine detail isn't exactly tack-sharp and night scenes are predictably flat and murky, but both elements certainly look accurate to this kind of film stock: contrasts between light and shadow doing most of the heavy lifting, not crisp edges and razor-sharp grain. Disc encoding seems to be on the upper end of Warner Archive releases, as no extraneous amounts of macro blocking or posterization could be spotted and the bit rate regularly hovered in the supportive range of ~30Mbps when I checked it sporadically. Overall, this is solid treatment indeed and it's obviously the best that The Little Drummer Girl has looked on home video to date.

The Little Drummer Girl Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio mix does a decent enough job with The Little Drummer Girl's original one-channel mono source, transposing it neatly into a split two-channel mix that features clean dialogue and nicely prioritized foreground and background effects. Group conversations sound natural and are rarely cramped by the narrow field, while diegetic music cues -- at least those not coming from a lo-fi car radio -- actually enjoy a surprising amount of punch and clarity. Occasional amounts of mild hiss can be heard during several scenes, many of them likely traceable back to the original location recordings, but they're forgivable and hardly distracting due to the film's mostly realistic, "you are there" tone. Overall, it's a perfectly fine mix under the circumstances and gets the job done without any real trouble.

Optional English (SDH) subtitles are included during the main feature only.

The Little Drummer Girl Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a keepcase with poster-themed cover artwork and no inserts of any kind. Bonus features are minimal, in keeping with the boutique label's policy of only carrying over existing extras from previous discs.

• Theatrical Trailer (1:49) - This fairly rough-looking promotional piece can also be seen here.

The Little Drummer Girl Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

George Roy Hill's The Little Drummer Girl was the late, great director's second-to-last film (arriving between 1982's underrated The World According to Garp and 1988's Funny Farm); it builds a decent amount of spy intrigue at times, but the screenplay feels rushed and its main character is dreadfully miscast. That might normally sink a film completely but there's still some merit here, although perhaps not enough to recommend this as a blind buy. That said, Warner Archive's Blu-ray treatment will be of great interest to established fans, so they should buy with confidence.