Themes: Cons and Scams, Political Corruption, Political Unrest
Main Cast: Dylan Baker, Pierce Brosnan, Geoffrey Rush, Jamie Lee Curtis, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine McCormack, Leonor Varela
Release Year: 2001
Country: IE/US
Run Time: 109 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Set amidst the controversy of the handover of the Panama Canal from America to Panama in late 1999, this espionage thriller follows seductive British spy Andrew Osnard (Pierce Brosnan), who has found himself recently banished to Panama. When Osnard stumbles into a tailor shop, he meets Harry Pendel (Geoffrey Rush), a garrulous sort with an unmatched penchant for "fluence" -- that is, fabricating wild tales with real-life details. Osnard threatens to expose his shady past, until Pendel agrees to provide him with information about the political situation in Panama. Pendel's wife Louisa (Jamie Lee Curtis) tries to remain unscathed by her husband's constant follies, which escalate and put him in the midst of international discord, while also threatening the shaky relationship between himself and Osnard, who cannot escape each other's grasp. Based on John le Carré's popular 1996 novel, the film also features Catherine McCormack, David Hayman, and young Daniel Radcliffe, who completed this film before his starring role in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, released later in the year. ~ Jason Clark, All Movie Guide
Review
Based on John Le Carré's book The Tailor of Panama, this is a very fine and altogether rare movie -- a satire too realistic to play for belly laughs and too giddily self-aware and subversive to make a routine spy thriller. It also benefits mightily from some very sharp work by Pierce Brosnan and the presence of Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush. Spying, as co-screenwriter Le Carré has observed, is a squalid business, and it's a credit to director and co-writer John Boorman that so much of Panama's seediness (drug dealers, corrupt bankers, and bought politicos) fits onscreen. Known for serious movies like Deliverance and Hope and Glory, Boorman gives the movie a sweaty, gleeful, sexual edge and pays proper homage to sources like The Man in the White Suit and Our Man in Havana. Another surprise is Brosnan, who ferociously plays British spy Andrew Osnard as a Bond turned inside out, bankrupt of idealism and discipline, all libido and unerring instinct for vulnerability. It's a ferocious performance that shows just how far from 007 Brosnan can go. And Rush makes his character Harry Pendel a jittery collection of contradictions. Credit him for stitching into the character so many threads of weakness, decency, love, courage, mendacity, sweet naivete, and sad cynicism without once rending him. ~ Nick Sambides, Jr., All Movie Guide
Mary Gail Artz - Casting, Barbara Cohen - Casting, Kevan Barker - Co-producer, Tommy Gormley - First Assistant Director, John Boorman - Director, Ron Davis - Editor, John Le Carré - Executive Producer, Shaun Davey - Composer (Music Score), Derek Wallace - Production Designer, Philippe Rousselot - Cinematographer, John Boorman - Producer, Brendan Deasy - Sound/Sound Designer, John Boorman - Screenwriter, Andrew Davies - Screenwriter, John Le Carré - Screenwriter, Laurence O'Toole - Scenic Artist, John Le Carré - Book Author
Andy Osnard (Pierce Brosnan) is an MI6 spy exiled to Panama after having an affair with an ambassador’s mistress. He trusts that he can uncover something big that will get him back into London’s good graces. Believing Panama to still be corrupt after General Noriega’s reign, and as the Americans have now given the Panama Canal back to Panama, Osnard concludes that if he can find out where the true balance of power surrounding the canal is, London will want him back.
His informant is a tailor, Harry Pendel (Geoffrey Rush), who has a few secrets of his own. Harry's wife, Louisa (Jamie Lee Curtis) is the assistant to the canal's director. Harry is in need of money and doesn’t have the business sense to ask his customers for the money to pay for their suits. Osnard knows that Harry has been lying about his background. He persuades the tailor to spy on his own wife to find out what the President plans on doing with the canal. Pendel agrees and begins spinning stories to keep the money from Osnard flowing.
The film digresses from the novel in a number of ways, the most significant of which is the status of the Panama Canal. The novel is set in the mid-1990s, prior to the U.S. handing over sovereignty of the canal to Panama. The film is set after this event. A further difference concerns the protagonist's character: the Osnard of the film is a failed foreign service officer exiled to Latin America, where he is unable to embarrass Britain. The Osnard of the book, however, although still an exile, hopes for a "big break" that will pardon him from previous misdemeanors and thus earn him a better posting. Unlike the book, the film ends with the United States ceasing its attacks.
