The
Tailor of Panama John Boorman’s The Tailor of Panama is a dirty, sweaty, funny, and for the most part realistic spy adventure. Based on the novel of the same name by John Le Carre, a former spy himself, the movie is slow, but tension-filled. It is funny, yet thrilling. It is moving, yet disturbing. The story begins with a spy named Andy Osnard. Andy is on his last leg, after having been bounced around the globe from assignment to assignment and from affair to affair. His last dalliance leaves him only one assignment left—Panama. To Andy, played with loathsome charm by Commander James Bond himself, Pierce Brosnan, this is hell. It’s hot, it’s boring, and it’s dirty. He is laughed at by his peers and looked down upon by his superiors. Andy is in a real fix. His assignment is to look after the Panama Canal and keep London informed of any new developments concerning its protection and operation. Andy decides that he’d rather not do all of the legwork himself, so opts instead to get himself his own spy, Harry Pendel, the titular tailor of Panama. Harry is a class act tailor whose family tradition of excellence and elegance goes back 400 years. Or is he? It turns out that old Harry is a former arsonist, whose whole life is a lie and who happens to be seriously and hopelessly in debt. Enter Andy who promises Harry money to get out of debt if he provides him with a few tidbits of information here and there and helps to get Andy plugged into the local scene. What Harry does is inadvertently cause an international conflict. You see, Harry is a great storyteller. Unfortunately, Harry doesn’t know when to quit. Geoffrey Rush instills Harry with a wonderful nervous energy that kicks into paranoid overdrive throughout the story. Harry is in over his head and he knows it. The problem is that Harry has been in over his head for years. He gets carried away, makes up a few tales here and there about a “silent opposition” waiting to take over the canal, and almost ruins the lives of everyone around him. Bronsan’s Osnard is the antithesis to Bond. He’s crude, crass, cruel, abusive, manipulative, and totally consumed by greed. Brosnan seems completely content to turn the image of Bond on its ear and it plays beautifully within the movie. Shot on location in Panama, Boorman instills the film with a look of sadness and beauty, a look of sheer heat, that it is hard to imagine Panama any other way. Forget the explosions, the high-speed chases, and the tuxedos. The Tailor of Panama delivers tense, moving performances wrapped around a truly human story of deception, destruction, and self-delusion. 7 February 2002 |