The Tailor of Panama Review

When a film that isn’t a Bond movie opens with Pierce Brosnan standing in the MI6 building overlooking the Thames, you know the filmmakers want you in on the joke. Here Brosnan plays the anti-Bond Andrew Osnard, a hard living, hard drinking agent sent to the backwaters of Panama after one sexual indiscretion too many. There he meets up with ex-pat local tailor Harry Pendel, (played with aplomb by Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush) and is soon being supplied top secret info, courtesy of the tailor’s high powered clients. However what Osnard doesn’t realise is that Harry is in fact spinning him a more and more elaborate yarn.

Veteran director John Boorman ("Deliverance", "Excalibur", "Hope And Glory") worked with author John Le Carre on this adaptation of his novel, which in fact features some major plot changes. Casting Brosnan as a spy has obvious connotations, but Brosnan seems to relish the chance to present us with a spin on his ultra-cool 007 persona. There are also great performances from Rush and Jamie Lee Curtis as his whiter-than-white wife, but ultimately this clever and literate film may be a little too slow paced and lacking in action for the multiplex crowd.