(Beyond Rangoon, Deliverance, The Emerald Forest, Excalibur, Exorcist II: The Heretic, The General, Hell in the Pacific, Hope and Glory, Point Blank, The Tailor of Panama, Zardoz)
Producer:
John Boorman
Screenplay:
John Boorman, John Le Carre and Andrew Davies
Music:
Shaun Davey
Cast:
Andrew Osnard: Pierce Brosnan
Harry Pendel: Geoffrey Rush
Louisa Pendel: Jamie Lee Curtis
Marta: Leonor Varela
Michelangelo "Mickie" Abraxas: Brendan Gleeson
Uncle Benny: Harold Pinter
Francesca Deane: Catherine McCormack
Maltby: John Fortune
Cavendish: Jonathan Hyde
Ramon Rudd: Jon Polito
The Tailor of Panama
is a spy film based on the John Le Carre novel and features Pierce Brosnan
as Andrew Osnard, more of a renegade spy and a 'bad boy' rather than the goody
two-shoes he can appear to be in the Bond series.
The film opens with the words:
"Often called the 8th wonder of the world, the Panama Canal was built by
American Engineers and operated by the US Army for 85 years. At the end of
1999 it was controversially handed back to Panama leading to intense speculation
about the future of this vital gateway. Meanwhile in a corner of Panama City,
plying his trade was the tailor of Panama."
That man, Harry Pendel, is played by Geoffrey Rush and the two meet
because it's Andrew's last chance at a spy given his slip-ups in England such
as having an affair with an ambassador's mistress and Pendel's wife,
Louisa (Jamie Lee Curtis), works for the Panamanian president and the
aim is to discover what the President intends to do with the canal. As reward
for his help, Andrew will be able to help Harry clear all his debts without
restoring to the Panamanian equivalent of lifeforce-sucking companies like
"Dial4aLoan" and "Ocean Finance".
There's great performances from the two leads, with humour and chemistry dropped
in from time to time, but their strength is lessened from a story that drags
and just isn't very interesting to begin with. According to the
Internet Movie Database,
this film did get a cinema release in April 2001 but it's one that passed me
by so it can hardly have been a high-profile one.
The rest of the cast is made up with Pendel's assistant and old acquaintance-cum-mistress
Marta (Leonor Varela), his old friend who had certain dealings with
Noreiga "Mickie" Abraxas (Brendan Gleeson) and British Embassy members
Catherine McCormack and John Fortune.
The film is presented in the original 2.35:1 widescreen ratio and is anamorphic,
but dark scenes tend to shimmer at times which is a bit disconcerting, but
only seems to happen earlier on in the film. Other than that, the picture
is free of artifacts.
The sound is in Dolby Digital 5.1, but rarely gets a chance to shine because
it's not an action film and the only audio other than dialogue is in a nightclub
scene and the score, liberally-sprinkled with flamenco guitars.
The extras consist of a 2-minute non-anamorphic 16:9 Trailer for this
film, plus more for Finding Forrester, The Legends of the Fall and
Devil in a Blue Dress, cast and crew Filmographies, a 25-minute
Featurette entitled "The Perfect Fit: A Conversation with Pierce Brosnan
and Geoffrey Rush", which does exactly what it says on the tin and includes
film clips, but occasionally the face-on interview shots are mixed with
pointless side-on shaky camerawork like you see occasionally used on TV DIY shows
and it's pissing annoying.
Also included is a feature-length Director's Commentary and an
Alternate Ending running for five minutes and suffers from not being
anamorphic, nor in DD5.1, but has the option of director's commentary on itself.
For a Columbia DVD there are the usual 28 chapters present and subtitles
in 17 languages: English, Dutch, Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish,
Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish,
Swedish and Turkish, plus Dutch subtitles for the audio commentary (why not
English too?)
The main menu is nicely animated and scored with music from the film and
a scrolling set of enhanced picture stills from the film.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
