Goodfellas is seen as an iconic movie, taking the role of a mafia man (without getting into the role of a mafia boss as in Gangster) through 30 years of his file, from a childhood yearning to be a man of power and money, to a final stage of obscurity in the Witness Protection Program, a man hidden by the Government to keep him safe from former companions (who have been betrayed). After all, in the mafia, the code of silence, ‘omerta’ is one of the most powerful weapons and breaking that is liable to lead to expulsion and enmity (and enmity with the mafia means death).
The number of Italian-Americans involved in the mafia is a very small fraction of the US, but the influence on the crime scene, and the level of intrigue in knowing more about their criminal activities has always had a very strong attraction for the US movie market and for audiences (and hence the large number of successful movies detailing various elements of the mafia). Goodfellas is probably one of the best in the league, and has been counted as among the top 100 movies ever made.

The movie is based on a true story, about a small-time gangster of Irish-Sicilian origin (and hence not a true Sicilian, and hence never be able to be a ‘made’ member of the mafia. Unless you were a pure-blood Sicilian, you could never be a full member) called Henry Hill. Eventually Henry reached a situation where he squealed on his friends (or in legal parlance, he helped the police and FBI break up an organized crime gang) and had to be put in the Witness Protection Program for his own safety. This real life story was captured in Pileggi’s 1985 non-fictional book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family.
Goodfellas depended on the acting capabilities of a few prime actors:
Robert De Niro playing Jimmy Conway
Joe Pesci playing Tommy DeVito
Ray Liotta playing Henry Hill
Lorraine Bracco playing Karen Hill
Paul Sorvino playing Paul Cicero
And, luckily for the movie, and for us, these actors delivered. To portray a good mafia movie, there has be to a certain inherent level of violence shown both in actual physical violence as well as being able to display a force through acting and dialogues, and it all seems to have come together. Goodfellas garnered 6 Oscar nominations in all (Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Adapted Screenplay). It must not have clicked with the voters though, since it was able to get only one Oscar - Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Joe Pesci.
In a Italian-American neighborhood in the 1950’s, mafia members had a certain attraction for boys growing up due to the easy money and power they projected, and Henry Hill was one of the boys so impressed. Eventually, he quits school and goes to work for the local mobster Paul Cicero and grows up in this company, learning the ropes of theft. He gets help from Jimmy Conway (Robert DeNiro) and associates with a violent sociopath Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci). They indulge in stealing cargo from the airport and make a pretty penny out of this racket. Henry also falls for a Jewish girl, Karen who initially is put off by him, but slowly gets intrigued by the mafia and the different life it entails for a member.
They (particularly Tommy) get more vicious, and eventually indulge in the ultimate sin, killing a ‘made’ mafia member without sanction, and hide the body so as to seemingly escape the responsibility and retribution. One of their activities in Florida (hanging a gambler over the lion cage in Florida zoo) gets them 4 years in the slammer, a period when Henry is left adrift by his friends and he has to start indulging in dealing drugs to stay afloat (and which also starts his downslide). When Henry gets out of jail, he continues to indulge in the profitable business of drugs despite Paul Cicero’s express disapproval.
The downfall of these gangsters continue - primarily displayed in 2 separate situations. In the first one, after a major robbery, Jimmy starts killing off his associates because they start flashing their wealth, something that could draw attention. And then Tommy is killed due to his role in the earlier unsanctioned killing of the mafia member, Billy Batts.
The day which changes Henry’s life occurs on Sunday, May 11th, 1980, when Henry is involved in many separate things. He has to coordinate a cocaine shipment, meet his mistress, get his brother from the hospital, cook a meal for his family, all the while when he is suffering from lack of sleep and an overdose of drugs; on top of everything, he is under federal surveillance. Eventually, he is arrested by the police; he is bailed out by his wife but the family becomes penniless as she had destroyed the entire cocaine shipment in the process.
Now Henry starts feeling abandoned, and not only abandoned, as being marked for elimination. He decides to turn approver, and break the code of silence. He and his family enter the federal Witness Protection Program, disappearing into anonymity to save their lives, but not before he testifies against Paulie and Jimmy in court.
The movie was a great review hit and earned around $47 million dollars, and also cemented Martin Scorsese’s reputation as a great director. Scorsese wanted to depict the film’s violence realistically, “cold, unfeeling and horrible, and that was the effect that the film’s critics and viewers got to see.

Right at the start, let me say it, and then you can read the review keeping this in mind. I simply loved the book. I have read it a few more times since the first time I read it, and one can’t help but be moved by the book. Let me cross-relate something I read in a Tom Clancy (Patriot Games). Even though that book is about renegade Irish terrorists, there is some dialogue in the book about the origin of the ‘troubles‘ and how a lot of this was mishandled due to British politics. And then I read Trinity soon after, and this book has done a great deal to explain the issues related to the Irish problem, especially the history.
To an outsider, the conflict in Northern Ireland seems strange, what with it being viewed as a battle between 2 Christian faiths. The source of the conflict and current issues seem hard to comprehend. This problem is further compounded by the fact that in the present, in Northern Ireland, the Protestant population is in a majority, and the Catholics are in a minority, an exact reversal of the population mix in Ireland, which is where the root of the problem originates. A conflict that seems so small to outsiders is actually many centuries old, reaching a peak with the conquest of the Catholic Irish king by the Protestant English kingdom in the 17th century, and the bitter conflicts after that.

The novel ‘Trinity’ is focused on a time period between the 1850’s and the Irish uprising in 1916. The book is pretty long (over 700 pages), but is extremely gripping and almost forces you to try and read as much as you can over one sitting, and try and finish reading the book first, getting higher priority over other things that you may have to do. However, if you are of English origin and not of Irish origin, you might consider the novel somewhat biased since it presents the outlook from an Irish point of view, with the English not being portrayed in the most positive of light.
The book is the story of the intertwining lives of the Larkins (Catholic hill farmers from the fictional town of Ballyutogue in County Donegal), the Macleods (Protestant shipyard workers from Belfast), and the Hubbles (representatives of three centuries of Anglo-Irish aristocracy).
The novel describes in some depth how the cultural and religious differences between the Protestant and the Catholic communities are exploited so as to drive them further apart, to the extent that any inter-action between the 2 communities is severely prohibited. The depiction of the treatment of a Protestant girl by her own community women, who is involved with a Catholic boy is horrific.
The book moves towards a Irish movement against the English occupation, culminating in a plot against a fort occupied by the English. The book ends in a failure that is converted to a victory; however, the message of despair in the Irish problem is ever present.

This book “The Search: An insight into the development of Google and search” is probably one of the most important books highlighting the development of search as a business, focusing on the evolution of the idea and growth. You will get an inside view of how a company named Google became an icon, the undisputed market leader of search and the company feared by many others. You also get an idea of the future potential of the search market, and some trends of how the future of search could develop into.
Google is the main star of this book, and this focus on Google seems quite natural. There have been many search engines before Google such as Altavista that were popular, but the sheer simplicity and power of Google blew away all contenders, and it would be hard to talk about why search is such an interesting topic unless you focus on a company that made search so popular.

The author of the book, John Battelle, is well suited to write a book such as this. After all, when you get a person who has been intimately connected with some of the pioneering influential sites on the Internet arena such as ‘Wired’ magazine, ‘The Industry Standard’ magazine and is able to touch base with the heads of some of the leading people in this area - such as the founders of Google, founders of Yahoo, the chief brain behind the Altavista search, and the venture capitalists (who are as connected and important for technological developments as the entrepreneurs themselves). As a result, the book presents a great detail of the inside view on how search as a technology and business developed, how early pioneers such as Altavista and Goto.com pioneered some of the technology, but were almost shoved aside when Google came into the picture.
There are some great number of stories in this book; one among them that always puzzled me was as to why Altavista, at one time the number one leader in the search space lost out so easily in the search game (the suits running the company failed to take advantage of the early lead). If you ever wondered as to how this company called Google came into being and what was the growth like, then this book has the answers. For people who were confused as to the difference between Google and Yahoo, you get a lot many answers in this book.
However, the book does not always go ga-ga over the Google Story, with a fair amount of criticism of the company also included. Thus you get to hear about the internal style of functioning of the company (with the 2 founders almost being portrayed as dictators), about how different the development/organizational model of Google is when compared with other software companies. For me, one important section was about the Google policy of ‘Do no evil’. Even though the book has covered the ethical dilemmas of Google when matching this policy with the force exerted by the Chinese Government, it does not cover the disappointment that a lot of people felt when Google compromised and agreed to be a part of the China censorship effort (through its google.cn site).
Overall, this book will take you through the development of search in some detail, including the evolution of Google and to some extent of Yahoo, and some trends in future search technology development. Most of all, this book should enthuse you about what the single-minded dedication (and luck) of a group of inventors can take them. Read the book for some inspiration.

Imagine the times; there was a widespread protest movement in Europe against the deployment of nuclear-armed missiles and against American bases having nuclear arms on them. In addition, there is still a great amount of tension between the Soviet Union and the US, and a new unknown Secretary-General (Gorbachev, but mostly unknown) has taken office. He is supposed to be young, and given the fact that he was able to move into the Secretary-General’s office in such a rapid manner, extremely clever and cunning.
What Frederick Forsyth did in ‘The Fourth Protocol’ was to spin up these concepts along with spy-work and some believable nuclear terrorism into a thriller that was gripping till the end. You know that the good guys will prevail in the end, but till that time, things could go either way. The further positive was the inclusion of some real characters including Neil Kinnock, and Kim Philby.

There are many positives about this novel; it has a believable cast of events, the technology talked about seems possible, every treaty could have secret protocols (and the fourth protocol seems very logical) believable enough to be cast as the background of the novel. The novel was also made into a movie of the same name starring Michael Caine and Pierce Brosnan.
The novel is made on the concept of a new Soviet Secretary-General being ambitious enough to try to explore British popular disaffection with the placement of nuclear missiles on their country. The plan, called Operation Aurora calls for the smuggling of parts of a nuclear bomb onto British territory and then exploding this very near an American base. Such a move could push British dis-satisfaction away from the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher and towards a left party. And then the most amazing thing would happen. The hard left of the Labour party, consisting of Marxist-Leninists would take over the leadership of the Labour party and set in force a series of measures that would move Britain away from friendship with the Americans.
Why call the novel ‘The Fourth Protocol’ ? Well, because supposedly the 1968 Non-proliferation Treaty had a set of secret protocols, out of which the number 4 was about no nation secretly transporting a nuclear device onto the territory of another nation.
The novel starts with a robbery in which the thief also finds some secrets (defense secrets) and knows that here is some treason; and sends these onto the defense ministry. And thus starts a secret enquiry into the source of this espionage. Eventually the spy is found out and turned over. At the same time, there is a Soviet plan to explode a nuclear device near an American base so as to get Labour to win the elections and then to get the hard left to take over. As this plan starts to take effect, one of the bomb parts is found and an investigation is launched. And thus starts the thriller, with the match between the MI5 officer John Preston and the illegal Soviet agent Valeri Petrofsky (a spesnatz officer); the MI5 officer a step behind but fighting to find out what the plan is and to stop it. A great thriller.

Imagine not being able to stand on a tall step-ladder because of the fear of heights - called as acrophobia. This fear forms the basis for the movie, now known as one of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest movies, and part of any list of the top 10 movies of all times. The movie however did not always have that reputation. When it released in 1958, it did not create much of a stir, and got a total of 2 Academy nominations (nominations in technical categories - Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White or Color and Best Sound). It did not win a single Oscar, and was essentially not acclaimed for some time.
And then came the re-evaluation. In the 1960’s, the movie started catching the attention of critics and reviewers, and got much more attention when it was re-released commercially in October 1983 and then on home video in October 1984. In the next few years, Vertigo was recognized as being among the best films ever made. Alfred Hitchcock rated it as his favorite movie.

The movie was an unusual movie in the sense that it combines the familiar Hitchcock trait, obsession, with some great sets, a story that is very gripping. Adding a touch of the paranormal to this story also enriches the whole movie; when coupled with a great double role by Kim Novak and the obsessed role played by Jimmy Stewart make this movie worth watching in a repeat mode. For those who have not seen the movie, it is worth watching.
The movie is shot in some great locations in San Francisco, and a great many of the fans of this movie make it a point to visit them. Some of the locations features in the film include such locations as Fort Point at the Golden Gate Bridge, Palace of the Legion of Honor, Muir Woods, Mission San Juan Bautista, Mission Dolores, Palace of Fine Arts, and a few others.
The movie is all about the obsessions of a former police detective John ‘Scottie’ Ferguson. He has always suffered from acrophobia (fear of heights) to some degree, but this develops into a full blown acute fear when he watches his police partner plummet to death during a chase on rooftops (Scottie himself is clutching onto dear life on his fingertips). It is now of the level that he cannot continue in the police force and resigns.
And this fear forms the backdrop of the movie. At such a time, he gets a case from an old wealthy friend, Gavin Elster, to have his wife Madeleine followed. Elster believes that Madeleine may be possessed by the spirit of a woman called Carlotta Valdes who killed herself a 100 years back. And Madeleine plays the part, visiting the grave and moving around in a trance. At one point, Scotties saves her when she throws herself into the San Francisco Bay. They are traveling together when she wants to visit the Mission San Juan Bautista, and then runs up the bell tower. Scottie is unable to follow because of his acrophobia, and can only watch in horror as she throws herself off the tower to her death.
Scottie suffers from depression over this whole incident, and starts to go back to the places that he visited along with Madeleine. And then he meets Judy Barton who looks a lot like Madeleine. She does not tell him the truth about being hired to act as Madeleine while Elster uses Scottie as a pawn to actually throw his real wife off the tower (she writes a letter to Scottie about this, but destroys it soon enough). However, Scottie’s obsession with Madeleine starts to show, making Judy dress up like Madeleine (including even the hair style).
Eventually Scottie forces her to go up to the top of the bell tower, and she confesses the truth to him, making him rage at her. However, Scottie has made it to the top of the bell tower, and this emotional turmoil causes him to lose his fear of vertigo. They reconcile, and then Judy pays a terrible price for his escape from acrophobia. She gets scared of a shadow (a nun) and falls down; Scottie is able to look down at her, thus showing that he has lost his fear of heights, but at a massive price.

The Green Mile is an incredible movie, at one level set in the depths of human despair (where a person can be convicted for a crime to a large degree because he is of an oppressed race (an African-American) in the depths of the American South in 1935 (as racially discriminating a society as possible), and at another level, about the goodness in a person and the gifts that he imparts. The movie is based on a Stephen King novel (published in 1996), and touches on supernatural and paranormal settings in an American prison based on the arrival of Coffey, a convicted murderer waiting on death row.
The movie is set entirely in flashback, with the recounting of the whole tale done in flashback, with one exception, a stunning revelation in the present by the main speaker (currently in a nursing home). The movie was nominated for 4 Academy awards,
* Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role — Michael Clarke Duncan
* Best Picture — David Valdes, Frank Darabont
* Best Sound Mixing — Robert J. Litt, Elliot Tyson, Michael Herbick, Willie D. Burton
* Best Adapted Screenplay — Frank Darabont

However, the movie did not win any of the awards that it was nominated for. It did win other awards, just not the Oscars. One thinks that was a miss. The Green Mile may feel slow to some, but like the director Frank Darabont’s earlier Stephen King adaptation, The Shahshank Redemption, the movie is very well adapted from the book, and builds up the whole concept of life in the prison, and then introduces the pivotal character, the Black condemned prisoner on Death Row. Most people will not fail to be moved by this film, by the emotions, and by the state of affairs in which a person is condemned to die even when you know that he is innocent because that is the way things used to happen at that time.
The Green Mile refers to the last stretch of green linoleum that condemned prisoners on death row had to walk before they met their fate on ‘Old Sparky’, the electric chair used for executions. Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks), an elderly man in a nursing home, comes in contact with a sadistic employee, which eventually causes him to remember an equally horrible employee (in 1935) along with the great giant Coffey, executed despite being innocent.
Paul is the corrections officer incharge of Death Row inmates and it is his responsibility to take a prisoner on the ‘Green Mile’ - the last trip of the prisoners. His life takes a turn when a new prisoner arrives. John Coffey (a great role by Michael Clarke Duncan), a great black giant standing 7 foot tall has been convicted of raping and murdering 2 young white girls and is now in Death Role, awaiting his turn with Old Sparky. Soon, they discover something strange about this slow and gentle giant. He is able to display great healing powers by bringing a mouse (Mr. Jingles) back from the dead, cures the urinary infection of Paul, and for good measure, also saves the tumour struck wife of the warden, Hal Moores (James Cromwell). He cannot explain what he does, but he has some great powers.
Into this mixture arrives a sadistic guard, Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchison). He is related to the governor, and is able to be sadistic and obnoxious due to this connection. Nobody can control his sadism and ill-treatment of prisoners due to his connections, but a chance comes when a new prisoner William Wharton (Sam Rockwell) arrives. Coffey comes into contact with him, and realizes that William was the actual killer of the 2 girls for which Coffey is on death row. He then displays his powers, getting Wetmore to shoot William, and then to lapse into a catatonic state from which he never recovers. When Paul asks Coffey about all this, he gets shown a vision by Coffey of what actually happened, something that Paul is not able to endure.
However, in spite of his innocence, Coffey is executed in the prison; but this is not the end. Paul, due to physical contact with Coffey, has gained mightily in terms of a life-span. The mouse Mr. Jingles, whom Coffey brought back, is still alive after 50 years, so Paul can only wonder what will happen to his life span. He is already 108 years as of now (as he explains), has outlived his friends and relatives, and feels that the burden of life (which will go on and on - his own Green Mile) is a punishment for having watched an innocent man executed.

Quentin Tarantino is extremely famous for his 1994 picture ‘Pulp Fiction’ starring John Travolta, but he had made a name for himself right from the first picture he did called ‘Reservoir Dogs’, released in 1992. It was an independent picture, but boasted of a pretty good cast and made a lot of name for itself, and continues to make a name for itself on the DVD circuit. It shook audiences all over with its pace, scenes incorporating flashbacks from the past, and the sheer poetry of the action (mostly in a warehouse).
The tagline for the movie was a good indicator of how the movie would be like: “Seven Total Strangers Team Up For The Perfect Crime. They Don’t Know Each Other’s Name. But They’ve Got Each Other’s Color”. The movie was a good indicator of how Tarantino’s movies would turn out - lots of references to pop culture, violent crime, great dialogues, and a story that moves back and forth between the past and the present.

The movie stars an impressive cast of people in the main roles of the perpetrators of a jewelery heist, but without disclosing their names (they are named after colors - Blue, White, Pink, Orange, Brown, Blonde). The cast of the movie is:

# Harvey Keitel as Mr. White / Larry Dimmick
# Tim Roth as Mr. Orange / Freddy Newandyke
# Michael Madsen as Mr. Blonde / Vic Vega
# Chris Penn as “Nice Guy” Eddie Cabot
# Steve Buscemi as Mr. Pink
# Quentin Tarantino as Mr. Brown
# Lawrence Tierney as Joe Cabot
# Edward Bunker as Mr. Blue
# Randy Brooks as Holdaway
# Kirk Baltz as Marvin Nash

And that is the main cast of characters. There is no female speaking role in the movie, truly making this a man’s movie - guns, violence, action, shootouts, and so on. Surprisingly, for a movie that is seen as such as a landmark and the first film of an accomplished film-maker, the origin of the movie was on a very small scale. Tarantino (working as a store clerk) was going to shoot it on the overall budget of $30,000 with a very limited cast. However, Harvey Keitel got to see the script, and wanted to get involved, including putting in 1.2 million dollars of his own money for financing, and appearing as one of the pivotal characters.
The movie does not have a complex story, primarily focusing on the aftermath of a jewelery heist that goes bad (police get involved and hostages get shot). There is no footage of the actual heist, the story is more focused on the going-ons when the robbers reach their pre-arranged meeting point (a warehouse). There is an incredible amount of suspicion that the whole plan had been leaked to the police, growing to the point that there is a firm belief that one of them is an undercover policeman.
Joe Cabot along with his son, ‘Nice Guy’ Eddie hires 6 people for a heist (the 6 don’t know each other) - revealed in a flashback (the hiring is done separately for Mr. Blonde, with the others being made the offer in a group session).
The heist is a disaster, with 2 of them (Mr. Brown and Mr. Blue) getting killed while making their getaway, and Mr. Orange getting shot in the abdomen. The robbers reach the warehouse in different groups (with Mr. Blonde having also brought along a captured police officer Marvin Nash). There is an increasing amount of suspicion about one of them being involved in the cops, and (in an iconic scene), Mr. Blonde tortures the police officer with a knife, finally cutting his ear off. However, as he is about to burn the police officer, he gets shot (by the undercover police officer).
This is when the identity of the undercover police officer is revealed to the audience, but the others do not know. As more of them reach the warehouse, there is an immense amount of suspicion and tension, culminating in a Mexican stand-off where they all point their guns at each other, and then.., shoot each other. At the end, the undercover police officer (Mr. Color !) is left, but he reveals his identity (to the person who led the mission and who refused to believe in his guilt) and finally gets shot.
The movie is worth watching, just for the scenes at the warehouse interspersed with scenes of flashback; it makes for a taut storyline, and you can really see the suspicion and tension in everyone’s face. If you have not seen the movie, see it and figure out why Tarantino has the reputation that he has gained.

For those who have read the book before this one ‘The Goal’, the book must have seemed like a breath of fresh air. Imagine a business novel written in the shape of a gripping novel, and seeking to present the objective (business concepts) in a way that does not put you to sleep - well, that was the way in which ‘The Goal’ was written. And here is the next book in the series. ‘The Goal II - It’s not chance’ takes the story forward from the first book.
Is ‘The Goal’ required reading for ‘The Goal II - It’s not chance’ ? No, you can read the second book without having to read the first book, but the ‘The Goal’ is good enough that you can read it on its own.

The book is written in the same style as the first book. The story is gripping, giving touches of both personal and business examples, and keeps you reading. If compared with ‘The Goal’, the book seems a bit less gripping, but just a bit less. Overall, it is worth reading. I found that you learn most from the book if you re-read it again within a few days of reading it first, since you are able to grasp the power of the concepts more thoroughly.
So while ‘The Goal’ was all about using the Theory of Constraints and associated bottlenecks to the manufacturing arena and how best to build predictability and flexibility to production, ‘The Goal 2: It’s not luck’ takes you to a higher level. The people involved are roughly the same. It’s still Alex Rogo and his team (and his family) who are now all promoted out of the plant that they helped save and have important positions in the conglomerate.
The conglomerate is a diversified one, having a printing business, women’s cosmetics, services and parts, auto products, etc. In this time and age, any expert would recommend that such a diversified group should consolidate; it gets more difficult to hold onto these when these diverse concerns are making losses and dragging down the conglomerate. It is quite logical that board members are pushing to sell them off, it is difficult for Alex Rogo to oppose these measures; the only thing he can do is to get them to be profitable so that either they earn enough to add value or they can be sold as a good profit making entity.
That is the quest of this book; how to use the Thinking Processes to turn around diverse companies - in fact, the idea is to show the strength of the Thinking Processes, which are used to examine conflicting logical arguments, incorporate customer needs and business environment and develop a workable solution that can help take a business from loss to profit, and also be used to solve personal problems ! It seems fairly logical, but there is a weakness as well - you need to get all the concepts and environmental points correct in order to do a good analysis.

Eye of the Needle was a novel that catapulted Ken Follett to instant fame. It was first published in 1978 with the title of ‘Storm Island’, and eventually became much more successful as ‘Eye of the Needle’. It was the author’s first major success and set him up to write many more successful novels based on a fast action track incorporating a spy thriller.
The novel takes a historical period (not too far back though - World War 2) and spins a story around that. The concept of a ice-cold anti-hero all out to break the secrecy of the allied effort getting felled by the courage of a lady with whom he has had an affair was very gripping. The story line is not very complex, but there is a fair amount of detail that holds the reader.

During World War II, the allied forced had been pushed from Europe and needed to re-enter the continent in order to take on the Nazis militarily. There are not too many feasible invasion routes, with the Dover-Calais route being the shortest and hence the most likely. The allies had however decided to take the longer Normandy landing; the biggest question was about how to protect this information from the Germans and to get them to focus on the Calais entry point. This entire operation was called Operation Fortitude, and it involved setting up a massive fake army so that the Germans could be deceived from afar. However, if a spy on the ground looked, he would be able to determine that this entire operation was a fake.
And the novel is based on such a person. A skilled spy, called ‘Die Nadel’, who is ice-cold and can kill anybody if they get in his way, eventually finds out the extent of the fake army and has to reach his submarine pick-up in a remote corner of Britain, and also transmit his findings to the German high command.
And then he runs into this couple living on an isolated island. A young couple, but the husband got crippled in an accident and is now very bitter, with the bitterness causing their relations to drift apart. And into this comes the spy; the inevitable happens; he soon starts to have an affair with the wife (the entire scenario described in some detail). At the same time, Der Niedle is being hunted by the British military who have found out about him and will do anything to hunt him down and kill him.
So what happens ? Does the husband find out about him ? Will the cold spy be able to reveal his truth or will he be found ? What about the affair between the wife and him ? ‘Eye of the needle’ is a well paced thriller with some well sketched out characters.

I watched this movie when I was very young, early teens, and the movie impressed me enough that I still remember it. The movie did not seem stretched, and presented a good representation of the world of the disabled. It was also the first movie that I saw where physical interaction seemed to be beautiful rather than something that was difficult to watch with others.
The story is not very complicated: William Hurt arrives as a new energetic, but unconventional teacher at an institution for the hearing impaired. There he finds Marleen Matlin (who is hearing impaired in real life also), who is a graduate of the school, but instead of going out in the real world as taught in the school, stays on to work in the school. He tries to make contact with her (having already fallen for her), but she resists his attempts until he finds out the reason for her stubborness from her mother.
Eventually be breaks through and they develop a mutual romantic interest and start living together.
This film was released in 1986, and won the Oscar for Best Actress for Marleen Matlin.
The film has some good humour, and I found the screenplay for the movie had a natural flow, overall I liked the movie.