March 29–April 5, 2001

movie shorts

The Tailor of Panama

A poison-pen letter to the spy-movie genre, John Boorman’s wicked satire fumbles toward the finish line, but before that it whips up a stinging condemnation of American and British imperialism. Geoffrey Rush stars as the Hitchcockian leading man, a Panamanian tailor whose exclusive clientele makes him the perfect tool for Pierce Brosnan’s utterly amoral British spy — a vicious, self-serving creature whose resemblance to Bond, James Bond goes far beyond the sartorial. Brosnan’s casting may be Tailor’s most obvious joke, but it’s one of its most satisfying as well, neatly chopping the legs out from under the spy-movie mythos, where the consequences of espionage are so broadly imagined (i.e. earthquakes, death rays) as to seem meaningless. Tailor makes the point that it’s always ordinary people who suffer, whether at the hands of dictators or those who purport to overthrow them. An odd, perhaps apropos note: Almost none of the film’s Latinos are played by Latins; instead such actors as Brendan Gleeson (of Boorman’s The General), Jon Polito and Mark Margolis fill the roles. Whether this plays as self-conscious commentary or merely the demands of an American studio is up to the viewer to decide.

—Sam Adams

(Ritz Five; Ritz 16)

Click here to see trailer!