To make a good movie you either need excellent actors or an excellent director. You need at least one of the two. In this Eye of the Needle we have none.
I don't even remember the name of the director. He mustn't have done much in his career. I like very much Donald Sutherland but he absolutely cannot be the main actor in a movie. He falls short. Sutherland is excellent in a movie when he appears for not more than 15 minutes. I would say for instance that Sutherland was excellent in JFK of Oliver Stone when he talked to Kevin Costner on the bench of a park for 10 minutes non-stop without even taking a breath. Wonderful. But Sutherland being the principal actor in a movie is no good.
Kate Nelligan? She is probably good for TV series. The DVD is awful. Terrible colors. Terrible light. I couldn't even appreciate the scenery of Storm Island for how lousy the photography was.
This Ken Follett story was good but it's a pity they turned it into an uninteresting movie.