Product: Tailor of Panama [VHS] (2001)
Rating: 3.0
"Casablanca without heroes."
Enjoyable outing from good ole John Boorman and John Le Carre, on whose novel this film is based. (Le Carre also wrote the screenplay.) Judging from the overall star-rating here at Amazon -- 2 1/2 stars -- *The Tailor of Panama* might be just a tad too dry, a tad too character-driven, a tad too intellectual, a tad too close-to-home (i.e., foreign policy, USA- and UK-style) for most viewers. Let it be said that the works of John Le Carre are for liberals, just as the works of Ian Fleming were for conservatives. And those who flock to 007 movies and spy flicks in general are probably in no mood for any fuss or muss about the decency or lack thereof of our Intelligence organizations, nor are they likely to be patient with any time expended on character development or due attention paid to a credible setting -- in this case, the 3rd World glory of post-Noriega Panama. (The latter being a proud creation of American ingenuity.) However, the critics of this movie ARE on firm ground by complaining about the ceaseless and largely futile attempts by Le Carre and Boorman, not exactly the funniest men around, to be witty. The "sophisticated" wisecracks throughout reminds one of similar stuff from 1960's English cinema, and is as stale as you'd expect. If there's anything "witty" about the movie, it's the casting of Pierce Brosnan, the current 007, as Andy Osnard, a character who is an ANTI-007: no Truth, Justice, and the British Way about THIS cad. After sleeping with one diplomat's wife too many, MI6 banishes Osnard to godforsaken Panama. It doesn't take the snake very long to get the lay of the land, make the right contacts (one of whom is ex-con Geoffrey Rush, now tailor to the local gov't bigwigs), start some totally fabricated trouble involving a deal between Panama and the Japanese that would hand the Canal over to the latter, concoct a faux "resistance movement", bed a couple of key ladies, etc. . . . the main point of all this being to earn redemption in MI6's eyes and get the hell out of Panama. The plot, taken as a whole, is implausible. But the notions of human gullibility, especially and ironically among those who literally tell lies for a living (intelligence agents), and the suffering of those "on the ground" (in this case, Panamanian citizens) as a result of all these macho-boy games played by superpower spies, are HIGHLY plausible.