Eye of the Needle
by Richard Marquand
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Christopher Cazenove, Donald Sutherland, Kate Nelligan, Philip Martin Brown, Stephen MacKennaDirector: Richard Marquand
Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 1.85:1
Running Time: 111 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-01-18
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Eye of the Needle
Movie Review: An intelligent slasher flick
Summary: 5 Stars
This a film of two halves and a bit of a surprise. It begins by being a spy story but slowly transforms into a slasher movie on a par with and a lot scarier than Halloween or Friday the 13th. Basically imagine that you live on an island and a German spy is trying to escape from England with a microfilm of photographs that could win the war for the Nazis. Imagine that this ruthless killer finds himself trapped on an island with an only family living there. It is a terrifying film and in many ways it reminds me of Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs. If you can sit through this without closing your eyes you are a brave one. Donald Sutherland is remarkably creepy.
Summary of Eye of the Needle
Donald Sutherland (Outbreak) and Kate Nelligan (Up Close & Personal) ignite the screen as ill-fated lovers in this "exciting, emotionally involving thriller" (New York Magazine).Based on the best-selling novel by Ken Follett, this searing mystery is a roller coaster ride of suspense, centering on the relationship between a master spy and a brave womanwith the fate of the world hanging in the balance.Englishmen know him as Faber, but to the Fatherland, he's the lethal spy known as "The Needle." On his way back to Germany, Faber is shipwrecked on an island outpost where he befriends Lucy, a beautiful Englishwoman who lives there with her family. Lonely and scorned by her bitter, crippled husband, Lucy falls for the enigmatic stranger, not knowing that he's atraitor determined to prevent the D-Day invasion. But as their passion erupts, Lucy discovers the brutal truthas love and war melt into an electrifying climax of eroticism, adrenaline and terror!Eye of the Needle is a superbly effective World War?II spy thriller from the Ken Follett bestseller of the same name. Donald Sutherland is "the Needle," a German spy in England bearing critical information on Allied invasion plans that he must deliver personally to the F?hrer. He's so named because of his preferred method of assassination, the stiletto. As played by Sutherland, he's a coldly calculating psychopath, emotionlessly focused on the task at hand, whether the task is to signal a U-boat or to gut a witness to avoid exposure. On his way back to Germany, a fierce storm strands him on an island, occupied only by a woman (Kate Nelligan), her disabled husband, and the lighthouse keeper. A romance of sorts develops between the woman and the spy, due to an estrangement of affections between the woman and her husband, whose accident has rendered him emotionally crippled as well. Much of the suspense of the latter half of the movie has to do with this romance, and the way it begins to reveal the Needle's motivations and whether there's a sympathetic personality buried somewhere inside him, though he remains by-and-large tantalizingly enigmatic. Early on, we discover that he may not enjoy the hand life has dealt him. When a courier asks him about the way he lives, and "What else can one do?" the Needle answers, "One can just stop." But as the film makes amply clear in its final third, one doesn't stop, does one? The direction by Richard Marquand (known primarily for thrillers such as this one and Jagged Edge, although he also did Return of the Jedi) is crisply done, boasting numerous suspenseful episodes, including a deadly encounter between Sutherland and the disabled husband, which is jaw-droppingly surprising. --Jim Gay
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