A different set of spies…
Starring Geoffrey Rush, Pierce Brosnan, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Brendan Gleeson. Directed by John Boorman.
Story: The U.S. has returned control of the Panama Canal to Panama. MI6 agent Andy Osnard (Brosnan) is a black mark for the English spy network: he has too many ex-wives and too many gambling debts; the anti-James Bond. He’s sent to Panama to stay out of trouble. With 200 registered Brits in Panama, he’s told that maybe he can set up his network there.
And that he does. He closes in on Harry Pendel (Rush), a tailor to the elite (or those who can afford him). Pendel claims that he studied on Saville Row with the best of them, but Osnard throws his real life back at him: Pendel did time in prison before his uncle helped get him a job in his tailor shop. Following that he left the UK for Panama, adopted this “personality” and married an American woman (Curtis). And things aren’t boding so well for Pendel; his farm, bought with money from his wife’s inheritance, is about to be foreclosed on. Osnard promises to make these problems go away just as long as he gets a little information.
Which Pendel supplies. The Brits and the Yanks want to know any and all rumors surrounding the canal. Pendel begins taking tidbits here and there and ballooning them up to whopper-size tales. He concocts a story about the “Silent Opposition,” a group against what the Panamanian government wants that includes his friend Mickey and his assistant Marta (Leonor Varela). As the lies get bigger and the secrecy gets deeper, Harry has to find a way to make it all stop when it’s certain to spin out of control.
First off the best thing about this movie is its two stars Geoffrey Rush and Pierce Brosnan. I’ll admit to not having seen a lot of Rush’s movies but he makes the character of Harry Pendel believable in what is a contrived situation. Pierce Brosnan, at the point in time of this film having completed 3 Bond movies, is great at being the anti-James Bond. He may have been born to play James Bond but he’s even better at playing the antithesis of him. These two make the movie worth watching.
Note: watch for Daniel Radcliffe (“Harry Potter”) playing Harry’s son. This was his feature film debut.
My grade: B+
Chas Andrews' Movie Blog 