Ray Pride

Liars, cheats, two-timers, eager-to-please fantasists: And those are the good guys.

John Boorman's adaptation of John Le Carre's "The Tailor of Panama" is a civil entertainment, witty and observant, that explores the post-Cold War treacheries of spies and informants in contemporary Panama. Pierce Brosnan is Andy Osnard, a screw-up English spy remanded to the tropics, where he meets all-too-eager tailor Harry Pendel (Geoffrey Rush), who has taken the measure of local society through his in-demand fittings. Even when it trips over into overscaled farce, the 68-year-old veteran director's film is filled with rare wit, tricky shifts in comic tone and the dance between Brosnan and Rush is a delicious match of gleeful, gifted actors.

Of Boorman, Brosnan says, "He's a renegade, a rebel and a maverick." To which Boorman shrugs, "Well, I'd have to accept the accusation, I suppose, in some form or other." It's the kind of reputation that doesn't always make for a smooth career. "Yeah. It's always difficult to get a film made in any sense, but I've always tried to have one foot in the Hollywood camp and one foot elsewhere," he says. "I've tried to work within genres as a way of connecting with an audience, then I suppose, to some extent, subvert them. Many of the films I've made haven't come out quite the way Hollywood might have wished. Some didn't come out the way I wished, either!"

LeCarre's characters are worldly and knowing, but they're also self-deluding, which makes the film seem less than cynical. "I was [concerned about cynicism]. I think, though, that the character of Harry, there's something kind of sweet about him, something even innocent, the way he wants to please and wants to tell people what they want to hear and the trouble that gets him into. Obviously, Osnard is cynical, self-serving and without any ethics or morality or loyalty. Yet he also has a certain kind of malevolent charm."

There's a biting scene where Osnard insists on meeting Harry in a gay disco, but more notable is a nasty note that underlines James Bond and Andy Osnard's differing boundaries. Harry's office assistant is a woman with a scarred face who had been among the anti-Noriega faction, and Osnard presumes a sexual relationship. "What Osnard is doing taking Harry to this gay disco is humiliating him, making him desperately uncomfortable. He's torturing him and teasing him, putting him at a terrible disadvantage. When we did a preview of the film, audiences were recruited, by saying, 'Would you like to see Pierce Brosnan playing a spy?' It was ridiculous, really. As the film progressed, it was possible for the audience to interpret his character as if he were going to be the hero. It was at that crucial moment, when he said about Marta with her damaged face, 'Great body, as long as she turns her face away when you're fucking her,' that a collective gasp went up in the theater. This was in the San Fernando Valley, the killing fields of movies. All the oxygen disappeared from the theater -- ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! After the screening, the studio executives said, 'You have to take that line out.' I said, 'On the contrary! We have to keep that line in! It's very important. That's exactly where they begin to realize what he is."

Shooting on location offered the detailed authenticity of place that even Boorman's imaginary worlds have always boasted. The film's production had to be wary of shakedowns and kidnappings, but another rivalry caused some friction. "I made this picture with an Irish crew. I took the whole crew form Ireland then came back [there] and did the interiors at Ardmore Studios. I sent painters and carpenters to prepare various bits we needed done. Whether it was the heat and the humidity or the availability of these whorehouses that slowed them up, I don't know. There are an awful lot of whorehouses there and I suppose there were temptations in their path. I have to be very careful what I say now because their trade union has threatened to sue me over these remarks."

The prostitutes? "No! But you know, when I was shooting the scene in the brothel, there was a young Panamanian in the office who said, 'My uncle has a chain of whorehouses, he can get you any number of whores that you want.' I said, 'I'll need about twenty-four.' He said, 'Fine, no problem.' I explained at the hotel, we're going to bring these twenty-four whores in, drag them around various places. The hotel said to me, 'What are you bringing the whores in for? What's wrong with our whores?' They were deeply offended that I should bring whores in when there were plenty of whores in the hotel. I compromised. I brought twelve in and used twelve of theirs. You see, real whores, if you have an actress playing a whore, she tries to behave like a whore, whereas, whores try to look like actresses. You had to be the real thing."

"The Tailor of Panama" opens Friday at Landmark Century. (03/29/2001)


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