Review of Eye of the Needle

I agree with the commentator who described this as a chick flick because my gut instinct is that the second half of the movie takes on the quality of a bizarre love story . However any female sitting through this would have to endure a story of a ruthless Nazi spy slaughtering anyone who stands in the way of his mission and some of the violence is quite brutal ( Channel 4 showed this in the late afternoon ) which I doubt would appeal to a female audience or indeed a family audience . As I said the second half of EYE OF THE NEEDLE changes in genre slightly so for all the lads who enjoyed the war/spy story will become rapidly bored with the second half romantic interlude . I've never read Ken Follet's novel but I got the impression it was something of a pot boiler that women read on sunny beaches so perhaps the story has been badly translated to screen ?

That's not to say the movie is bad . Donald Sutherland carries the movie as the cold , ruthless but charming " Needle " who'd probably cut his mother's throat if it expanded the cause of Hitler . It'd be easy for Sutherland to go right over the top in the role but he plays the part in a subtle manner and I did enjoy the aspects where it's revealed he's a spy and the subsequent hunt for him ( Even if it leaves a plot hole - How was he able to operate in Britain for four years after his first murder ? ) , but unfortunately if you enjoyed this aspect then you'd probably be annoyed with the second half and the amount of violence in the early part of the movie means much of the audience the film was intended for wouldn't want to see the latter half