Tinker, trailer, traitor, spoof

>> John Boorman's Tailor of Panama is a deceptive double-cross

by JOANNE LATIMER

And the Oscar for Most Misleading Film Trailer goes to The Tailor of Panama, because it sure ain't no "taut thriller."

Film audiences who've seen the trailer will have certain expectations of the film, which bills itself as a devious post-cold war movie. Pierce Brosnan should look suave with a gun while opening safes and jumping out of burning buildings. We expect Geoffrey Rush to play either the worthy adversary or the worthy accomplice. We feel certain that Jamie Lee Curtis will prove her superior I.Q. in all matters diplomatic. Harold Pinter will appear, stoic and wise, as either a bad guy or a noble emissary. And we expect the unique flavour of Panama to come through.

This is what we're led to believe by the film's action-packed trailer. Now, would you change your mind about seeing the film if you learned that it's really a quasi-spoof on MI6 operatives and corruption in a banana republic? Add to this the film's magic realism--yes, magic realism--and miscasting of an Irish actor (Brendan Gleeson) as a local rebel named Mickey. Pinter plays a ghost, appearing in mirrors, and Brosnan is a low-rent Bond who watches porn.

It gets worse. In one scene, early on, we're shown a wall map of the Americas. Panama is absentmindedly traced by someone's finger. (Thanks.) And we get a primer on Noriega's legacy. Harry (Rush) is a tailor who gets blackmailed into indulging his fantasies about becoming a player in Panama's political scene. He's afraid his wife, Jamie Lee Curtis, will discover what a boob he is and leave him.

Soon, the invisible "silent majority" against the government endangers everyone in the plot, as do the legitimate authorities, and we learn very little about Panama. All the lead roles are foreigners.

The cheapest double-cross really happens to us, the audience, as we slowly glean the truth. Brosnan is spoofing himself and Jamie Lee Curtis doesn't find it very funny. Director John Boorman (Deliverance, The General) obviously took John LeCarré's novel as the basis of this film, and simply ramped-up the Casablanca parallels for comic effect. It didn't work, so some poor editor had to cobble together a trailer that hid the truth. It does, much to the chagrin of paying audiences.

The Tailor of Panama opens Friday, March 30