Product: Tailor of Panama [VHS] (2001)
Rating: 5.0
Woven Out of Whole Cloth
I've watched and enjoyed "The Taylor of Panama" several times now. It seems to represent co-producer John Le Carré's homage to Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, and a spoof on the spy genre-film in general (It even includes a humorous pot-shot at "Casablanca.").Geoffrey Rush turns in a moving performance as Harry Pendel, the tailor, whose fantasy life makes him all too vulnerable for the enticements and blackmail of the seedy would-be, but never-actually-was, James Bond--Andrew Osnard, a burnt-out MI-Sixer, banished to Panama as punishment for peccadilloes in foreign postings [Pierce Brosnan does an engaging satire on his cinematic Bond aplomb.]. Between the fantasies of Pendel (whose dead but not-so-silent partner is portrayed by Harold Pinter) the situation soon gets out of hand and almost ruins Pendel's marriage (His wife is played by Jamie Lee Curtis.); it destroys his loyal Panamanian friends, and almost starts a war. And while Osnard and most of his colleagues prove to be as corruptible as they are mendacious, the tailor finally comes clean with his wife and mends his marriage.Behind the satire is one of Le Carré's favorite topics, the willingness of Intelligence services to believe what they want (in this case the presence of a "silent opposition" to the local government), and, in the name of expediency, to spin the most tenuous threads into colorful yarns that they then weave into plausible fabrics and preposterous fabrications. Le Carré therefore seems to be suggesting that the various intelligence services with their vested interests are all accomplished tailors.