The Tailor of Panama (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Main Menu Audio & Animation Dolby Digital Trailer-City Audio Commentary Featurette-The Perfect Fit: A Conversation With P Brosnan and G Rush Alternate Ending Filmographies-Cast & Crew Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Finding Forrester;Legends Of The Fall;Devil In A Blue Dress
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	105:09
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	John Boorman
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Geoffrey Rush Pierce Brosnan Jamie Lee Curtis Brendan Gleeson Leonor Varela Catherine McCormack
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$36.95	Music	Shaun Davey

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Dutch Arabic Bulgarian Croatian Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Swedish Turkish Dutch Audio Commentary	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    There have been a lot of spy novels turned into movies over the years, with varying degrees of success. John Le Carré has crafted many novels of intrigue and espionage, including The Tailor of Panama. Adapted by him from his own novel and under the guidance of veteran director John Boorman one would expect, in conjunction with an excellent cast, a movie of exceptional quality. Instead, we get something a little more pedestrian that lacks punch, but is still a fairly decent movie for all that. The major problem for me was simply that there is little action to punctuate the dialogue and no real suspense to build the story on.

    Another slight problem for me was the lack of chemistry between Pierce Brosnan and Geoffrey Rush as the primary characters. Brosnan's characterisation of Andrew Osnard was first rate. A good looking, philandering, low morals, hard drinking misfit who happens to work for M.I.6. Rush on the other hand is the sort of actor that can carry off playing the Marquis de Sade in Quills with absolute aplomb, yet just looked strangely out of place against Brosnan. I guess it's a case, in my estimation, of as much chemistry as a rock and a glass of water. Another problem for me was that although the scenery and location shots were exquisitely rendered, the direction of Boorman was too soft and lacked any edge.

    Andrew Osnard (Brosnan) has been recalled from his last assignment in some disgrace after some unpleasantness. In a last chance for him, he's assigned to cover the British interests in Panama, a country with an ex-pat population of less than 200 and basically a backwater assignment. In true Osnard fashion, he determines to make the best of a bad situation and while travelling to his new assignment looks for a willing (or unwilling) ally whom he hopes can get him back into the good books with his employers.

    Harry Pendel (Rush) is a local tailor, claiming to be formerly from Saville Row and now tailor to the power elite of Panama. Osnard, after some checking, discovers that Harry has a rather unsavoury past, including time for arson and in fact learned his tailoring art at the pleasure of Her Majesty. Using this fact and details on an overdue bank loan for a rather unproductive plot of land, he coaxes Harry into doing a little spying for him, with the lure of money and his silence. Andy wants information, the sort of information that an unnoticed tailor might be able to gleam when visiting the powerbrokers. The only trouble is that Harry has more idea of how to concoct a story than to find out what is really going on.

    At first, Harry makes up a story about the canal being sold to foreign interests, including the Chinese, when Osnard puts some pressure on him. Whether Osnard really believes him is debatable, but there is nothing like a good fairy tale to make you look good to the bosses. The trouble is, there is no real evidence to support Harry's claim, so Osnard forces him to begin spying on his own wife, Louisa (Jamie Lee Curtis) who works for the Panama Canal authority.

    It is soon discovered that the sale of the canal is a fallacy, so Osnard steps up the pressure on Harry who in desperation conjures up first an arms deal worth $10 million and then the Silent Opposition, supposedly run by his own secretary Marta (Leonor Varela) and a friend of his, Mickie Abraxas (Brendan Gleeson), former opponents of the Noriega regime. Whether Osnard believes Harry or not doesn't matter - this is the sort of fantastic nonsense that he can use to get back into the good books and Osnard is too smart an operator not to see a chance to score big time for himself.

    Like I said, The Tailor Of Panama is a strange, slow-moving movie that just lacks any cutting edge. There are no whizz-bangs, no big car chases and no real running around. There is a little bit of chest thumping, a bit of sly deviousness, lots of innuendo, some sex and the odd humorous moment. Personally, I've watched the movie three times and I like it, but that says something more about the fact that special effects only go so far with me.

Video

    This is another excellent transfer to DVD, with only minor problems to distract the viewer.

    This transfer is offered at 2.35:1 and is 16x9 enhanced which is very close to its original theatrical release aspect ratio of 2.39:1.

    The first thing I noticed was the lack of grain. There was some, but it was very light, adding to the overall sharpness of the transfer. Some noticed edge enhancement (61:41 is a good example, the profiles of Jamie Lee Curtis and Pierce Brosnan in relief) did detract somewhat throughout the movie though. Shadow detail was excellent with even the darker scenes offering excellent background detail. As with all newer movies, there was no hint of low level noise and blacks were solid and very clean.

    The palette in use in this movie was excellent and varied. I could detect not even the slightest bleed and colours were totally natural at all times.

    The only real distractions in this transfer were film to video artefacts. Throughout the movie, your eye may detect slight break-ups on various objects like windows, shutters and cars. Aliasing, such as at 7:34 and 32:12 on a window and the shutters is typical. Moiré artefacts were a little rarer but a notable one occurs at 10:39, again on a window shutter. No MPEG artefacts were detected nor any pixelization. Some slight film artefacts can be seen at 54:24, but otherwise the print used was pristine in this regard.

    A choice of 17 subtitles are available and they take up the bottom line of the movie and extend into the black bars below the picture. Reasonably accurate without too many liberties, they are easy to read and utilise a decent font.

    After three viewings, I still haven't been able to determine a layer change on this disc. One of two possibilities come to mind. First is that it is so brief that my DVD player didn't detect it (unlikely), or two, considering the bitrate for the movie hovers around 5.5-6 meg/second and the movie is relatively short, that no layer change was needed for the movie, and it is on one layer and the extras on another layer (most likely).

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    As with any movie that is primarily dialogue-driven, this one doesn't have a lot of special effects and is fairly confined to the front soundstage for the most part. Offering just a single soundtrack in Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448 kilobits per second in English, this one can be called adequate for the job only. One other thing to note is that the soundtrack seems to have been recorded at a very low level. I had to listen at a much higher setting than normal in order to obtain good fidelity.

    There was no problem with the dialogue although there was a very noticeable sync error at 35:02, an obvious overdub that was totally mismatched.

    The music was by Shaun Davey, who also did the music on another favourite of mine, Waking Ned Devine. Nicely molded into the Panamanian location, the soundtrack includes lots of samba music and some nice Latin beats. Nothing especially overwhelming with the music but a generally good track.

    This is not exactly the best surround channel usage I've heard in the past few months and only occasionally does it make itself noticed. There isn't much envelopment generated by the rear's soundtrack to be honest although there were many parts of the movie that cried out for just such a treatment.

    Even less used is the .1 channel. Basically, you might hear the odd muffled note coming from the subwoofer but it remains fairly inactive all the way through the movie.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Main Menu Audio & Animation

Dolby Digital Trailer

Audio Commentary

Featurette

Alternate Ending

Filmographies-Cast & Crew

Theatrical Trailers

All trailers come with optional subtitles.
• Tailor of Panama: A running time of 1:52 in letterboxed 2.35:1 and 16x9 enhanced. A surprisingly full-bodied Dolby Digital 5.1 track accompanies this trailer. Very clean and nicely presented.
• Finding Forrester: A running time of 2:05 in letterboxed 2.35:1 and 16x9 enhanced. Also comes in Dolby Digital 5.1 and is again very clean and sharp.
• Legends of the Fall: Back to the humdrum, 2:13 running time, 1.33:1 and not in 5.1. Fairly blurry with some artefacts.
• Devil in a Blue Dress: A running time of 2:19, 1.33:1 and no DD5.1. Fairly clean and sharp

    From the looks of it, the difference between the Region 1 and Region 4 comes down to subtitles and an additional French Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack on the Region 1 transfer. As far as the subtitles go, they get English and French, we get an array of 17 to choose from.

    I found this an enjoyable movie much in the style of a typical Le Carré thriller, except that it lacked any real buzz about it. The acting of the primary cast is excellent, although Rush and Brosnan do appear to be odd bedfellows that might appeal to others but didn't do much for me.

    The video is excellent with only a couple of minor blemishes.

    The audio is adequate for this type of movie, but nothing spectacular.

    A decent extras package without being exceptional. The trailers with Dolby Digital 5.1 were a bit of a surprise.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall