| United Artists | Release Date: July 24, 1981 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
5
Mixed:
6
Negative:
0
|
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Critic Reviews
A well-crafted, well-acted anomaly: a film good enough to raise its aim and our expectations but not to score a direct hit. So one leaves simultaneously pleased and disappointed, asking the right question - "What if?" - but for all the wrong reasons. [25 July 1981]
The oddity of this romance and its picturesque setting do a great deal to lend interest to an otherwise minimal (for a spy picture) story. [24 July 1981, p.19]
As a bestseller, this was a good read, but on film, the crimes the Needle commits on his escape route are so psychopathically gory that he is rendered loathsome. Sutherland's sometimes effective stillness, and some routine direction, are also offputting. On the other hand, Nelligan's anguish is quite touching; she grants the film's final passages a certain suspenseful, almost redeeming, grace.
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Eye of the Needle never really catches fire. Marquand and screenwriter Stanley Mann may have overestimated the strength of their story: they serve it up unembellished, with competent but imperhat...Eye of the Needle isn't a bad film, just an unnecessary one: it was a better movie as a book. [3 August 1981, p.50]
The tussle between David and The Needle seems to release a Pandora's Box of outrageous scenes. [24 July 1981, p.D8]
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