Product: Tailor of Panama [VHS] (2001)
Rating: 2.0
Limp and obvious.
Well, sometimes a director's pitiful inability to establish an appropriate pace is mistaken for the thoughtfulness, unhurriedness and other ingredients of a quality film made to last. In The Tailor Of Panama John Boorman is his old self, the man who made Arthurian lore look infinitely boring in his amorphous and pseudo-meaningful Excalibur, the man who had told the story of the Dublin's most celebrated criminal, the General, in a line of semi-disjointed episodes, showing the basic rudiments of cinematographer's skill only in starting and ending the film with the same finishing scene.He obviously prefers to have a well-known material, rich in colorful collisions and characters - they have to carry the weight of a film, make it interesting.In The Tailor Of Panama the director treads the waters that are very much familiar to anyone who is not a stranger to the British tradition of mocking the antics of the big bosses from the frightfully named agencies responsible for the national security. An underdog gets into the grind, cons the surprisingly foolish and vain hierarchs with his endearingly unbelievable inventions - and more often than not gets away with it. A humble man vs. The State, a soothing fable for us common Joes. Graham Greene's Our Man In Havana is the most immediate example, the tip of the iceberg. As if that's not enough John Boorman takes on the motives from the most popular tale of surviving - with dignity - the troubled times in ultimately corrupted place, The Casablanca.The catch phrase about the absence of heroes made it to every review, meaningless as it is. The more direct quotation from the same source - " Maybe that's the beginning of a great friendship" - is less lucky. It looks like a pure commercial speculation, a hasty indulgence, something extra for a viewer's pleasure.There is not a drop of fresh blood in the whole film. Everything is so limp and obvious. The character's actions, motivations, emotions just hint on something we have read or seen before, in all the eagerness to please with utterly recognizable ingredients originality was shooed from the set - or maybe they had nothing to lure it with.Pierce Brosnan looks his usual self, a perfect, cynical, omnipotent male no one can resist, a model more than an actor. Geoffrey Rush portrays confusion, painful loyalty and vague greed with the grimaces you can forecast well in advance. To make their interactions livelier the director puts the actors on the electro-bed in bordello, makes them hug each other tenderly on the gay club's dance floor but these well-meaning gags fail to produce the belly laughs - it's a "quality film" after all, not a Jim Carey vehicle.The other actors also look as if they spend on the set the court-imposed hours for some minor misdemeanor. No stars are born, no career highlights for anyone.Everything is known from the beginning, it's all boringly predictable, unnecessarily detailed, explained when everything is evident without explanations.If you are looking for the perfect investment of these couple hours you've allotted for the pure entertainment - skip that film. It's plain boring.If you possess the patience and understanding to appreciate an original, meaningful and coherent cinematic piece - take them somewhere else.