Product: Tailor of Panama [VHS] (2001)
Rating: 5.0
Superior film; it's not meant to be a regular fast actioner
Composure is key to Andy Osnard (Pierce Brosnan), an unscrupulous spy who realizes that the best gadgets an agent undercover uses are his cunning, his intellect, his grandeur, and his libido. All of these qualities must mold into a singular force, and the genuine spy never allows the weight of these qualities or his difficulties to come through physically, for without composure, what is a spy to be?"The Tailor of Panama," a comeback film for "Deliverance" mastermind John Boorman, answers this question as it pits the ruthless Osnard, who can always keep his cool, with Harry Pendel (Geoffrey Rush), who cannot balance the many out-of-order elements of his life with the same crispness.Both of these characters - richly textured, ingeniously conceived, totally idiosyncratic - play a game of wits that headlines a deftly rendered Hollywood thriller that ranks as one of the finest spy thrillers in years.Attribute the film's considerable success not only to its sterling direction by Boorman, but in the picture's graceful ability to derive its story solely from its characters. "Tailor" is bereft of the boundless cliches and storytelling conventions that ultimately dictate the narrative arcs of nearly all major action pictures. It instead weaves its web and inflicts intrigue, tragedy, betrayal and sex upon its characters without ever feeling as if the writers are plunging through the Hollywood gamut.There's hardly a chase scene in this effort, yet there's rarely a dull moment, either.Credit must be paid to all of the performers, who inhabit their roles rather than occupying. Brosnan does a melicious variation on his James Bond persona, a risky idea that works brilliantly. Rush continues to be a superb character actor, and makes Harry into the film's heart and center, always exuding multiple dimensions and providing rich emotional facets that grace the picture with an uncommon complexity. Curtis is quite good, in a low-key manner, as Harry's intelligent and loving wife, and Brendan Gleason is outstanding as Harry's alcoholic best friend.Boorman continues to have a nearly unmatched skill at incorporating locations and settings as to make them entirely central to the storyline, exploiting their natural beauty and local color in a manner that defies traditional "postcard views" that would be at home, say, in James Bond. The screenplay is tireless in its abundance of wit and clever turns for the story to take.If at times improbable and perhaps too pat upon resolution, "The Tailor of Panama" is still a richly composed, exceptionally realized contemporary thriller, willing to take chances in an uncommonly simplistic era of major studio pictures.