The Tailor of Panama Blu-ray offers decent video and mediocre audio in this mediocre Blu-ray release
In this seductive spy thriller based on the best-selling novel by John Le Carre, Academy Award-winner Geoffrey
Rush (Quills, Shine) delivers a dazzling performance as Harry Pendel, an ex-
con turned tailor to the rich and infamous and married to smart and sexy Louisa (Jamie Lee
Curtis - 'Halloween H20', 'True Lies'). Directed by Academy Award -nominee John Boorman
('Hope and Glory', 'Deliverance') and set in steamy Panama, where nothing is what it seems,
Andrew Osnard (Pierce Brosnan - 'The World is Not Enough', 'The Thomas Crown Affair'), a suave
and ruthless British spy, entices Harry to eavesdropping on the powerful politicians he clothes.
But Harry's talent for storytelling compels him to weave an elaborate tale that's not only taken
as truth, but sets off a chain of events that threatens to destroy everything he treasures most
in life.
Films buffs might be hard-pressed to find a more bland movie-watching experience than The
Tailor of Panama. Promising an engrossing spy mystery, the film instead delivers a halfhearted
attempt at...something, a hodgepodge of styles and themes that consistently play counter to one
another and never really add up to anything worth watching, save for several scenes of excellent,
screen-igniting dialogue between the film's two leads. Certainly, there are spy elements
involved here; a dangerous game takes shape and, by picture's end, unravels to several dramatic
consequences, but the road there is so tedious that it's really hard to care about the outcome --
either on a more sweeping scale or on a personal level as to the matters involving the primary
characters -- and the several revelations come more as a reprieve that the film has come to its end
than as
any sort of breathtaking or otherwise captivating revelations that promise to ingrain the film into
the moviegoing public's conscience.
Just plain, simple Pendel.
Disgraced MI-6 operative Andy Osnard (Pierce Brosnan, Married Life) is
reassigned to Panama -- where the Canal has recently been turned over to Panamanian control --
where he engages one of only several hundred British nationals living in the Central American
nation for the purpose of intelligence gathering pertaining to both the Canal and the political
upheaval that marks the post-Noriega era. He turns to a tailor named Harry Pendel (Geoffrey
Rush, Pirates of the
Caribbean) who clothes Panama's wealthiest and most influential businessmen,
criminals, and decision-makers. Harry's living a life of lies, though; while his tailoring skills are
genuine, his backstory is not. A former arsonist, prison inmate, and current husband to a woman
(Jamie Lee Curtis, Halloween) that's on
the
inside of the Panamanian government, both Harry's background and his stature as a respected
member of the community make him the perfect source of information.
Spy games and tailors go hand-in-hand like Dabo and Raktajino; in fact, Star Trek's "Garak" from
"Deep Space Nine" is probably the quintessential filmed representation of a tailor with a
mysterious past and embroiled in something of a spy network amongst the powerful and
influential. In The Tailor of Panama, actor Geoffrey Rush attempts to recreate a similar
tone as a man putting on a serious but ultimately dishonest front as a tailor and eventually
finding himself involved in a
dangerous game with both his future and that of Panama at stake. Rush's effort is very good,
though somewhat uneven, but that's more a fault of the script that has his
character unfocused than it is his acting ability. On the other hand, Pierce Brosnan's character is
more easily assessed because he's so painfully one-dimmensional. A womanizing, self-centered
weasel, Brosnan plays the part like only he can; he seems to call upon his James Bond
experiences here, toning down the action but turning up the smugness and self-confidence; it
works well for him, and considering his character's history of womanizing is what landed him in
Panama in
the first place, it seems only appropriate that he retain that trait throughout. Rush and Brosnan
ignite the screen with every scene they share; particularly delicious in a devious sort of way is
their first encounter inside Pendel's tailoring shop that sees Osnard toying with the tailor and
gradually revealing that he knows more than Pendel believes. The Tailor of
Panama also features a peculiar but nevertheless solid effort from Jamie Lee Curtis and an
appearance by a pre-Harry Potter Daniel
Radcliffe.
Unfortunately -- and not a fault of Rush's or Brosnan's performances -- the material never quite
works. The Tailor of Panama is a dry, dull, and mostly vapid experience that plods along
at a slow and sluggish pace with only a few fleeting moments of excellence in the form of
dramatic or character developments. The main problem here is that the film lacks focus, not
necessarily in story but certainly in style. Shifting on a dime from segments that take on an
outright comedic tone (particularly when the score takes on a lighter feel) to suddenly flashing
back to the brutality of the Noriega administration, the film seems scattered at best, though it
generally settles on something of a light dramatic feel that's punctuated by Osnard's smugness
and Pendel's balancing act between simple tailor and informant. John Boorman's (Deliverance) direction
reflects the tone of the script, too; it's bland but not detrimental, and while the Director doesn't
capture the scale of Excalibur or the same tension and gritty realism as seen in
Deliverance, he doesn't have material even close to the same level of excellence to work
with here. Without more than a cursory understanding of John le Carré's novel on which the film
is based, it's hard to lay blame, but the script definitely lacks intensity, importance, and
focus, and neither solid acting nor decent direction can overcome a fledgeling script.
The Tailor of Panama suits up on Blu-ray with an inconsistent 1080p, MPEG-2
encoded, 2.35:1-framed transfer. An early release in the life of the Blu-ray format, it's unrealistic to
expect the world from this disc, and all things considered it's not a bad effort despite said
inconsistencies. The film's first shots inspire absolutely no confidence. Soft, fuzzy, poorly detailed,
and terribly flat, the opening scene sets a troublesome tone, but the transfer never looks as bad
again and some of the brighter daylight scenes actually fare very well. In these shots,
detail is appreciably higher, clarity improves a great deal, colors appear bright and pleasant, and the
image gains a much-needed sense of depth. Clothing, some of the more finely-appointed interiors,
and close-ups of actors reveal a nice amount of visible detail that allow the image to come alive and
deliver adequate -- but not fantastic -- Blu-ray visuals. Still, many scenes are plagued by
hit-or-miss blacks, erratic detail, minor softness, and some occasional edge enhancement. Flesh
tones can look a bit pasty but never stray too far away from a natural shade, and the transfer
retains a subtle layer of grain. Certainly not a handsome transfer but, outside of a few shots, not
abysmal either, The Tailor of Panama looks all right for an early Blu-ray release.
Listeners may size up The Tailor of Panama on Blu-ray through the included PCM 5.0
uncompressed
soundtrack. That's right, there's no ".1" or subwoofer channel to be found here. Though the
lack
of a subwoofer channel is puzzling, The Tailor of Panama isn't the sort of movie that
would
have thumped and rattled the listening area, anyway. In fact, this one probably could have
gotten away with a
two-channel lossless or uncompressed track, and the results would have been virtually
interchangeable. The rear channels rarely pump out any sound, and the track in general is
delivered with a lifeless tone that seems timid and indistinct. The audio lacks the transparent
quality listeners have come to expect of a PCM or lossless mix, and dialogue, sound effects, and
music
often sound rather puny. The track's best asset, though, is the presentation of the score. It
does
spread out nicely enough across the front with a generally distinct and pleasant flare, but still
lacks
compared to even moderately good tracks. Dialogue occasionally sounds muffled and can be lost
under sound effects that often feature a fair volume but lackluster clarity. Atmospherics are
heard
slightly about the front half of the soundstage but do little to immerse the listener in the various
locales around Panama. The Tailor of Panama's lossless track does its job well enough
but
with nary an extra bell or whistle to allow it to stand out as anything but painfully average.
The Tailor of Panama stitches a few extras into the Blu-ray release. First up is a
commentary track with Director John Boorman. The director delivers a cut-and-dry sort of track,
speaking on the basic angles pertaining not only to the filmmaking process but also some of the
history of the region, particularly as it pertains to the story presented in the film. Of course,
random tidbits about the film dominate; from actor Geoffrey Rush's learned skill in the art of
tailoring to the recognition of various secondary and tertiary actors that play in the film, the
commentary is much like the movie: passable but not particularly engaging. Next is The
Perfect
Fit: A Conversation With Pierce Brosnan and Geoffrey Rush (480p, 24:46), a piece featuring
the actors in a sit-down discussing the story, the difference between script and book, how the
book guided their performances, Boorman's work, shooting locations, and plenty of other
informative but generally rambling sort of insights. Also included is an alternate ending with
optional Director commentary (480p, 5:32) and 1080p
trailers for Tears of the Sun and
Black Hawk Down.
The Tailor of Panama is a harmless little movie that doesn't get much right
but neither does it get anything so egregiously wrong so as to make it more of a punch line than
a
serious movie. Still, the middle ground -- a sort of cinematic purgatory -- in which the film exists
certainly doesn't do it any favors, but better to settle comfortably into the pile of passable but
forgettable fare rather than descend into the realms populated by the more egregiously terrible
pictures, a place that's definitely welcoming more than its fairshare of newcomers of late. At best,
The Tailor of Panama makes for a passable endeavor for Pierce Brosnan completists and
as decent time-killing fare when the choices are The Tailor of Panama and the latest
brain-dead reality show, but the film's lack of cohesion keeps it from being better than a
borderline sort of floundering picture. Sony's Blu-ray release doesn't do the film any favors,
either. An early release in the life of the format, the so-so technical specs are both expected and
mostly excusable, seeing as how the studio now produces some of the finest discs on the market.
Also featuring a handful of extras, The Tailor of Panama works best as a rental for those
that care to give it a try.
