Tailor of Panama

An amoral British spy (Pierce Brosnan) is posted to Panama as a punishment; undaunted, he sets about making his name with the reluctant assistance of an expatriate tailor (Geoffrey Rush) with a shady past. Director John Boorman’s film of John le Carré's novel is a wickedly intelligent black comedy on the self-perpetuating art of espionage. Brosnan must have cackled at the thought of playing an evil twin of James Bond, and his gleeful, reptilian performance gives the film a nasty, delicious kick. Boorman’s approach to the film is a kind of headlong verbal slapstick, beginning in easy tropical lassitude, then accelerating moment by moment as the noose tightens around the hapless cloth-cutter. Caught in the crossfire are Jamie Lee Curtis as Rush’s wife and Brendan Gleeson as a drunken journalist.