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THE TAILOR OF PANAMA Send This Review to a Friend
John Boorman's new film based on John le Carre's book is as enjoyable for what it isn't as much as for what it is. Set and filmed on location in Panama, the intrigue-packed yarn avoids pressing the familiar buttons to go for a blockbuster action flick in the James Bond mode. Instead, it is slyly satirical with a decidedly un-Bondian hero, a thoroughly unscrupulous intelligence chap named Andy Osnard, suavely played by Pierce Brosnan, who, as the entire world knows by now, is also adept at playing Bond.
Osnard, known as a womanizer, is exiled to Panama by British intelligence for a previous misdeed, whereupon he proceeds to get up to new mischief as a plot begins to spin around Harry, the tailor, featuring Geoffrey Rush in a well-stitched performance that is one of his best. Harry is not who he claims to be, and given his background, he is ripe for Osnard's blackmail that enables him to use Harry for his own devious ends. Harry is a bundle of contradictions, pretenses and frustrations and Rush makes the most of the character. Jamie Lee Curtis adds solidity as his unsuspecting wife.
The plot, involving the Panama canal, gets convoluted, as one might expect, with the intrigue and resulting action ribbing the kind of idiocy that characterizes the world of plots and counter-plots, with governments getting involved in stupid ploys based on trumped up claims and misinformation, while some individuals are busy feathering their own nests. The script, by Carre, Boorman and Andrew Davies adheres to a light but larcenous touch as well as the requisite action and scheming.
The other casting adds interest, including Harold Pinter, who fleshes out Harry's thoughts about his Uncle Benny; Catherine McCormack as Francesca, a sexy British Embassy assistant whom Osnard promptly beds, and Leonor Varela as facially-scarred Marta and Brendan Gleeson as boozed up Abraxas, both of whom fought heroically against the old Noriega regime.
It is easy to become immersed in the milieu created even though some of the story gets murky and over-extended. The beauty of "The Tailor of Panama," squarely in the Graham Greene tradition, is that it relies on characterization rather than on technical gimmickry or explosions. It is escapist fun watching Brosnan and Rush in what is essentially a send-up of secret agent movies as well as the profession itself. A Columbia Pictures release.
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