Profil de toadman0211

A period piece, subtle and crude at once

Directed by Bob Rafaelson and starring Jack Nicholson and Karen Black, this film is a "must" for any student of the 1960s. Posing questions about purpose, depicting a cynical and rootless voluntary exile from a musical family (Nicholson) in a relationship with a devoted aspiring country-and-western singer (Black), ultimately severing all ties between the hero and his past, "Five Easy Pieces" is punctuated by cameo scenes and subtle character definition within a straightforward, even oversimnplified, cast of characters.

Le Carre meets James Bond in a clever adaptation

If you are a fan of John le Carre's work, you will have doubts about Pierce Brosnan as the louche Andy Osnard of Her Majesty's Secret Service. You will, however, admit that, overall, this is a clever adaptation of a subtle storyline. The le Carre fan has to accept that the BBC set the standard with "Tinker, Tailor", "Smiley's People" and "A Perfect Spy" and that any other production cannot measure up to those in terms of faithful reproduction of all the subtleties of a le Carre spy story. Having said that, one must add that this production of "The Tailor of Panama" economically splices many touches of le Carre's original into a fast-moving story with twists and turns, and that it reasonably faithfully recreates the character of Harry Pendel (Geoffrey Rush). Harry wants to please everyone, so when he is pressured to produce material for British spy Andy Osnard, he produces it, carefully doctoring the truth to fit what Osnard wants to hear. Osnard's bosses like what Harry produces, so Harry gives them more of it. Harry, after all, only wants to please. The consequences of a surfeit of "intelligence" on the political movements of Panama are extreme. To meet a perceived threat, the western alliance takes drastic military action. Across the stage of political, diplomatic and military blunders, a bizarre selection of characters grapples with truth and risk/reward ratios while Harry goes on being Harry until the wages of his deception are paid. A good and entertaining film with convincing perfromances from all characters. It stops short of being over-sentimental or over-farcical and is less than faithful to the underlying message of the book. But, overall, it succeeds.

Shocking, dispassionate - ultimately boring

A perfect Nicolas Cage part - a hard-boiled private investigator - carries the thin plotline for most of the movie. The problem is that the plot is simply not strong or complex enough to maintain drama until the end. The content reeks of perversion designed for the box office. It is slow-moving and moralistic as a counterpoint to that content. It runs out of action and purpose about an hour from the end and the viewer is left to move at the film's pace to a fairly predictable conclusion. But for Nicolas Cage's performance the viewer would not bother.