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The spy-like espionage that we are treated to here (based on the book by John le Carré, who co-scripts along with Boorman and Andrew Davies) is about a smug, glib, exiled British spy Andy Osnard (Pierce Brosnan), now stuck in Panama, who harps on the innocuous, but far too imaginative tailor Harry Pendel (Geoffrey Rush), who was once a criminal.

Osnard, believing he knows something, begins pumping Pendel for information of an uprising and political corruption in Panama, which would hopefully be Osnard's ticket back out, so long as he could masturbate his way up the ranks and likings of those first in Panama, and then back to Britain. As it turns out, to Osnard's surprise, and supposedly ours, Pendel's words are nothing but fibs, fibs he seems unable to contain.

"The Tailor of Panama" is mostly dull. Despite of few ill-placed action scenes and the occasional bout of artificial adrenaline or sexuality, "Tailor" is sewn crookedly and scattered, as are the occurrences in this. The spy-intrigue is non-existent. The movie quickly loses its incentive to want to find out, or know what's going on, because the script is trying far too hard to be far too tricky, all the while leaving the audience behind in a trail of serpentine convolutions, and that simply is not meant as a complement. It is one thing to introduce an equivocal storyline in order to clutch and adhere your audience, but there is a requirement for the occasional explanation to make us privy, otherwise the audience feels betrayed and has no interest in keeping up with it.

Brosnan has really shown that he has no career outside of James Bond any longer ("The Thomas Crown Affair" was but a footnote), and the Bond franchise, though still reaping in the dollars, has finally begun to decline from my interest, and this is coming from a Bondefile. Seemingly unable to get a role if outside the realm of spy material, no matter what side of the table he be on, Brosnan is otherwise condemned to a career of direct-to-video action yarns that seem to be collecting nothing but dust anytime I pass by them on the shelves. Despite his appealing good looks, and British machissimo, the side-of-mouth-spoken gent lacks any authority, demand or resonance with our audiences. And his crass character here is hardly likely to win himself that in most circles. (Full of constant innuendo: "You're right, it was open. Just tight from lack of use." Or, when he aims to be more direct: "How about a farewell fuck here in the office?") Rush exceeds his performance from "Quills" (what a waste of a nomination), but he lacks any connection with the audience and is left like a tailor without threads to spin. Naked, like the emperor with invisible clothes. (Albeit, not naked in the sense as was his poop-smearing Marquis de Sade.) Jamie Lee Curtis is also in the movie, not particularly serving any purpose or service, not to mention the absence of sexuality she supposedly embodies.

In the end, or in the long run, "The Tailor of Panama" pulls one too many jolts or twists on itself before it has tricked itself into retirement and non-commission. Even then, it doesn't recognize how ludicrously bereft it is, and though Boorman, et al. fancy it clever, it is quite appositely silly.

Final Verdict: D+.

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originally posted: 03/30/01 18:54:50
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