The Tailor of Panama (2001)
After the stultifying Spy Game, it was kind of nice to see a spy movie that actually treats the genre as just that -- a game. Pity that Tailor isn't very good either. Geoffrey Rush isn't bad as the titular tailor, and Pierce Brosnan looks like he's having a lot of fun as the anti-Bond. But the plot, the plot... essentially it's an hour-plus of wheels spinning around and around, unconvincingly wrapped up with a sudden flurry of action. I suppose something could be said subtexually about the film's preoccupation with sex and fucking -- that what Brosnan and Rush are doing to the various women in their lives is also what they're doing to their country or some such. But it's not like Dr. Strangelove and a hundred other movies didn't get there first. Scenic and elegant and not much else besides boring, frankly.
Grade: C
After the stultifying Spy Game, it was kind of nice to see a spy movie that actually treats the genre as just that -- a game. Pity that Tailor isn't very good either. Geoffrey Rush isn't bad as the titular tailor, and Pierce Brosnan looks like he's having a lot of fun as the anti-Bond. But the plot, the plot... essentially it's an hour-plus of wheels spinning around and around, unconvincingly wrapped up with a sudden flurry of action. I suppose something could be said subtexually about the film's preoccupation with sex and fucking -- that what Brosnan and Rush are doing to the various women in their lives is also what they're doing to their country or some such. But it's not like Dr. Strangelove and a hundred other movies didn't get there first. Scenic and elegant and not much else besides boring, frankly.
Grade: C
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