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The Tailor of Panama (2001)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:111
Fresh:86
Rotten:25
Average Rating:6.8/10
Consensus: A smart and satrical thriller with an engaging cast.
Runtime: 1 hr 49 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Pierce Brosnan stars as the anti-Bond in maverick director John Boorman's adaptation of legendary spy novelist John le Carre's seamy tour of post-Noriega Panama. A British intelligence agent whose... Pierce Brosnan stars as the anti-Bond in maverick director John Boorman's adaptation of legendary spy novelist John le Carre's seamy tour of post-Noriega Panama. A British intelligence agent whose taste for gambling and other men's wives has put him on the wrong side of his bosses at MI6, Andy Osnard (Brosnan) is posted to the backwater of Panama to atone for his sins. To that end, he recruits upscale tailor Harry Pendel (Geoffrey Rush), leveraging the man's financial problems and questionable past to gain access to information about the activities of his elite clientele. Meanwhile, Osnard remains true to form, recruiting the personal services of lovely embassy official Francesca (Catherine McCormack), and attempting the same with Harry's wife, Louisa (Jamie Lee Curtis). When Harry's best friend Micki (Brendan Gleeson), a former member of the anti-Noriega underground, now a broken man, begins blustering about politics in front of Osnard, both of these con men begin to see him as the solution to their problems. The mundane tragedy of espionage familiar to le Carre's Cold Warriors has been replaced by farce with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Boorman creates an atmosphere redolent with U.S.-abetted corruption in this well written and acted film, which also features playwright Harold Pinter in a cameo role. [More]
Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Pierce Brosnan, Jamie Lee Curtis, Brendan Gleeson
Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Pierce Brosnan, Jamie Lee Curtis, Brendan Gleeson, David Hayman, Catherine McCormack, Harold Pinter, Leonor Valera, Dylan Baker, Daniel Radcliffe
Director: John Boorman
Director: John Boorman
Screenwriter: Andrew Davies, John Boorman
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Reviews for The Tailor of Panama
The film, for all its earnestness, snaky comedy, and would-be intelligence, never manages any real fizz.
A never-thrilling, occasionally amusing picture which wheezes badly, like a pig which has been shot but refuses to die.
A sometimes-plodding, rarely inspiring or revealing and often confused spy drama that can't decide whether it wants to be quirky, smart, sexy, tense or all of the above.
The Tailor of Panama is no more unlikely a tale than your typical Bond movie -- it's just a lot less fun.
I might have enjoyed The Tailor of Panama a bit more if it did not echo a much sharper and more amusing romp in the cane field of Latin American intrigue, Our Man in Havana.
Refashioned only imperfectly from the book, it ends up neither fish nor fowl, an amalgam of drama, satire and farce which never comes together into a satisfying whole.
Brosnan makes Osnard into one of the spy genre's great cynical manipulators, Bond on a bender. It's too bad the rest of the film can't quite live down to his character.
What's most unnerving about The Tailor of Panama is the film's overall tone, which wavers uncomfortably between modest thrills and modest farce.
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