Pendel starts inventing lies, and he accidentally cooks up a story that the Germans, French, and Chinese are bidding to buy the Panama Canal. Though he doesn't openly say it, it's pretty obvious that Osnard knows this is all bullshit from a tailor. Then everything and everyone calms down, and it's all very anticlimactic. Come to think of it, the entire movie is very anticlimactic. Scenes last longer than necessary.
People talk too long about needless details.
Brosnan does an almost decent job of playing a heartless, selfish, evil bastard. He tries to have sex with everyone he comes in contact with and succeeds once. He also spends a lot of time in whorehouses. But his, like all the characters, are a bit shallow, and equally static. I'm not going to say that this was a bad movie, but it was a bad film.