Based on a John LeCarre novel, the tailor in this movie version is played by Geoffrey Rush. He’s a guy named Harry Pendel and he lives a seemingly happy little life with a wife, played by Jamie Lee Curtis and a couple of young children. His work brings him close to the inner workings of political life in Panama and for that reason he’s selected by a spy named Andy Osnard to bring Osnard information. Osnard is played by Pierce Brosnan. He’s been exiled to Panama from London for various misdeeds. But he’s told there’s all sorts of important matters to be dealt with down in Panama and he’s to get on them. One of those matters is the security of the Canal itself, so Andy sets his sights on poor Harry to bring him information. In return, Harry gets money and the promise that Andy will not reveal his secret past ,which even his wife is not aware.
At first it’s hard to get a handle on this movie. It seems like a goof, with Brosnan playing sort of the evil James Bond. He’s still a womanizer but the way he uses Harry and the nasty tone he takes towards the whole thing tell you he’s no Bond. He’s up to something and although it takes a while to get there it’s well worth the wait. It’s just that it can be a wait. After Andy and Harry first meet, I started to get bored and distracted as Andy weaves his plot. It’s tough, as it always is, to follow the British accents through this tangled web of intrigue. Especially Geoffrey Rush. He speaks in this husky whisper which was enough to drive me crazy after a while. But it’s all to emphasize his kind, gentlemanly ways. He considers himself a well-mannered expert tailor selling only the finest quality clothing to only the finest people. That comes through and by the end of the movie Rush had me sold on his need to act they way he did. His “double life” is also well portrayed as we watch him sink deeper and deeper into this mess. Of course, he digs his own grave by lying to Andy, but you do still root for him to get some of his dignity back. Jamie Lee is excellent as the logic and moral center of this story as she comes to realize there’s something weird going on between her husband and this Andy guy which goes much deeper than suits. She’s the kind of character you need in these type of movies to ask the no nonsense questions
As for Pierce Brosnan, this was a great way to take on a role that strikes back at the whole Bond stereotype. Burnt out on the whole dopey spy business, Andy renames it “information technology” and sets about using everyone and anything to set-up a nice retirement for himself. I’m not sure why, but I found myself rooting for Andy too.
You’ve got to have patience with this movie but it will come through in the end. Ordinarily I complain that too many movies use shortcuts and dumb plot holes to set up a story because they only have less than two hours to tell it, but it was worth the slow set-up to watch the story of “The Tailor of Panama” unfold. I didn’t feel that way until near the end and I’m not sure anything like this could unfold in real life, but with all the international paranoia that surrounds something like the Panama Canal, who knows? This is an unusual and well- spun tale. I give it an “8.0” on the scale.
Friday, March 23rd, 2001
Yes, the old con game movie. Father-son, husband-wife, girlfriend-boyfriend, this time it’s mother-daughter. They sort of took some of the fun out of things when it’s very clear from the movie trailers that Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love-Hewitt are scamming Weaver’s new husband, played by Ray Liotta. It’s the opening sequence and I wondered if it might have been more entertaining if I did not know that beforehand. Anyway, enough of me trying to change the way the movie people try to entice you into buying tickets, but this is one of those movies where the trailers have already played most of the best jokes.
Heartbreakers is the story of Max and Page Conners, a mother-daughter con artist tag team. Most of their big scores involve Mom (Sigourney) marrying some mark and then daughter (Jennifer) seducing the guy so Mom can then divorce and make off with some money. Liotta plays Dean, the first guy we see the pair swindle, but Mom’s been married thirteen times so this has happened many times before. Which is exactly the problem for Page. She wants to go off and con some guys on her own but Mom keeps holding on because she can’t bare to see what happened to her happen to her baby as well. Isn’t that sweet? So what did happen to Mom? Ah, see for yourself. All I’ll say is this is a movie that expects you to laugh along and enjoy the scams pulled off by this anything but loveable pair and then feel for them as they try to find their way through this delicate mother-daughter issue. Please! Love-Hewitt is mostly annoying. She’s nasty, moody and a gold digger. Which is fine. She’s supposed to be. But to root for her when she seems to finally find “true love” with a guy played by Jason Lee is a stretch. Why would a great guy like this fall for this phony? She’s attractive all right, but obviously up to something and he never catches on. She can’t figure out whether to scam him or stay with him for the rest of her life. I don’t look for realism in comedy movies, but how about a little consistency? The character Lee plays is bright, quick-witted and seems like he’d never fall for this con.
However, Dean fits in well with the whole con game. He’s a shady chop shop guy from New Jersey and is stupid enough to fall for all this. It’s pretty funny watching Max pull off the con on him and I enjoyed seeing how Sigourney ropes these guys in but manages, even on their wedding night, to avoid sleeping with them. Dean comes back around later in the movie and is a welcome sight as he calls the women on what they’re up to. Also a welcome sight in this movie is a character named Bill Tensy, a tobacco multimillionaire who Max decides to hit up for one last big score with her daughter. Tensy is played by Gene Hackman, who couldn’t have a better name to play that role. He coughs his way through one scene after another and even though he should have seen through Max’s bad Russian accent and over-the-top seduction, who cares since he’s only a tobacco company executive.
Heartbreakers, most of the time, had the right mood going. The ladies are good, but plenty of times meet up with some foul-ups in their schemes and I found that pretty funny and handled quite well. They can’t be taken seriously and they should have stayed on that theme. Instead, they try to resolve the problem of the pair growing apart and because these are, after all, scam artists, why should I care if they end up happy? It all adds about a half hour of mostly unfunny and uninteresting time to this movie. I give Heartbreakers a “6.0” on the scale.
Friday, March 16th, 2001
I see so many movies that one with a story out the ordinary catches my eye. This movie is a war movie but this time it focuses on the Russians versus the Germans during World War II. I was stunned! How could there be no Americans to root for? While your first impulse might be to root for the Russians, keep in mind how many died under Stalin and all the wasted years of that cold war. But, besides that, how are you going to get American movie audiences to go to a movie where the battle is between Russians and Germans? Well, for one, how about making a good movie.
The Russians versus the Germans is probably one of the biggest untold stories of that war. Sure you can read about it in history books, but few movies have attempted to portray one of the most gruesome match ups of the last century. And too bad Enemy At The Gates doesn’t touch on it much either. This one should really be called “Sniper versus Sniper”. It’s the story of a Russian soldier named Vassili, played by Jude Law. He is an expert marksman and is “discovered” by a propaganda officer of the Russian Army. That guy is named Danilov and he’s played by Joseph Fiennes. Vassili has a gift for being able to take out Nazi officers and Danilov believes by making him a hero in whatever passed for the Russian press at that time, he can rally people to fight back against the Germans. The krauts strike back by sending one of their own top marksman, a guy named Konig, to take out Vassili. He’s played by Ed Harris.
One of the first things you notice in this movie is that all the Russians have British accents and speak English. Nothing terribly wrong there. Just strange. The Germans, well, they speak English too (mostly), but with what appears to be German accents. Except Ed Harris. I’m not sure what he sounds like but since he plays the steely-eyed killer, he’s not expected to say much. Enemy At The Gates get off to a fine start. We get the real deal as the Nazis are advancing on Stalingrad and Stalin and his cronies will do anything to prevent that city from falling. It is, after all, named for the guy. The armies and civilians are all frightened and the opening sequence makes that clear. I was completely absorbed. We then get a taste of Vassili’s abilities and that held my attention too. This movie starts out harsh and tough and cold like war. I’m sure it wasn’t pretty to be in Stalingrad in 1942.
Then suddenly it happened. Or it didn’t happen. Suddenly Vassili finds love with another Russian soldier named Tania and Danilov is jealous and the whole tense stand off of the war around them is lost for a while. Somebody decided this thing needed a dose of Hollywood romance complete with the two guys vying for the same girl and the old “I must survive because I love her”. Sorry, this all seemed like a mistake to me. Why didn’t anyone realize that this story was big enough and didn’t need the dopey love story featuring the beautiful girl who still manages to look like she’s wearing make-up in the middle of the foxhole? The cat and mouse game between Vassili and Konig was fascinating as they play out a small battle in the midst of one of the largest battles of that entire war. The showing I attended was 95% guys in the audience and although Rachel Weisz is fine to look at, I doubt any of them were hungering for more of that love story. We want two talented guys fighting to the death! It’s no different that watching Ali versus Frazier or Jordan versus Magic Johnson. Guys want to see the competition. I can understand wanting to add some females to the audience, but I don’t think this movie was promoted that way. At the very least, they could have done more to look at the plight of the Russian people trapped into fighting those ugly battles.
The movie still holds up, thanks to a good finish, helped out by, of all things, a little kid. We know Vassili and Konig are headed for the final showdown but the resolution is carried out well, aided by a young boy who may or may not be helping Konig catch up with Vasilli. Enemy At The Gates could have been up there with the really classic war movies, but somebody had to mess around with a pretty good thing. As it is I give it a “7.0” on the scale.
Saturday, March 10th, 2001
I figured it was only a matter of time before someone used Andy Warhol’s famous phrase as a movie title. The 90’s bought us such a growth in top story tabloid news it only follows it’s time to make a movie about the growing public appetite for scandal and murder.Not that 15 Minutes is the first to cover this angle, it’s just the latest to do a pretty miserable job of it.
Here’s your cast of usual suspects – Robert DeNiro as New York City homicide detective Eddie Fleming. He’s the media savvy one. The guy who invites the news people along as he makes the bust. A cop right out of the TV show “Cops”. Then there’s Kelsey Grammer as Robert Hawkins, the anchor of a TV tabloid show called “Top Story”. He’s Eddie’s “friend” along for the ride to fame and fortune. Also in on this story is Edward Burns as New York City fire marshal Jordy Warsaw. I’m not sure why we need a fire marshal involved in what turns out to be a serial murder investigation but here he is anyway. Oh, now I remember. He’s an arson specialist and a fire is set to cover the first murders. This is good stuff, isn’t it? Let me continue. There’s only a few more lumps to introduce you to. Our bad guys are played by nobody you’ve heard of. One is a Czech guy and the other is a Russian guy. If you can believe it, they get out of prison from somewhere in Eastern Europe to recover some bank robbery money. The Russian guy is also a big American movie fan. So they come for the money but end up killing people, filming the murders and try to capitalize on it for their own fame and fortune. That’s about it, except for two romantic partners for DeNiro and Burns who are hardly worth mentioning, because, well, because, they’re hardly worth mentioning. I’ve spent too much time on them already. They’re only in the movie to give our tough guys some soft diversion. And it doesn’t work. I kept thinking, “all right, now back to the killers”.
So Eddie and Jordy play the run-of-the-mill odd couple cop team. Eddie’s old and wise and loves using the media to help catch killers and to make himself a little famous and Jordy’s younger and turned off by the media barrage. Ho-hum. DeNiro’s cigar chomping tough guy ways got so boring I almost welcomed the scene where he’s talking to himself in the mirror and it’s a flashback to “Taxi Driver” all over again. The movie actually got off to an almost promising start. The Eastern European killer guys are goofy but they make a better pair than DeNiro and Burns. The Czech one is the real killer and he’s not so hot on the Russian one filming his every sick move. He, of course, comes around, but this takes time and makes at least some sense. Which is completely unlike the scene in this movie where Eddie thinks he’s shot one of the killers and then doesn’t give chase. Huh? If you winged him, wouldn’t he be a bit slow? Never mind.
This movie is divided into three parts. The beginning, which is a somewhat promising, sets up our killers and their quick conclusion that in America “nobody is responsible for anything”. Which I can’t argue with. But the next part is slow as we follow Eddie and Jordy’s investigative steps. We also have to endure Eddie’s attempts to ask his news reporter girlfriend for her hand in marriage. Slow, very slow. Then comes the last part of the movie which I think probably is the worst part because we finally hit the big satire mode and it all doesn’t seem to fit the first two-thirds of the movie. There is a big twist which I won’t come close to disclosing, but let me say that, after that, everything falls apart. The movie becomes one big farce and although I did laugh, nobody else in the theatre was and I’m not sure you were supposed to be laughing. Let’s just say everyone seems to be fighting everyone and it’s out of control. When we get introduced to the guy who becomes the Czech killers lawyer, it’s really all down hill. That’s because he’s played by Bruce Cutler as himself. Cutler, I believe, was one of the John Gotti lawyers. Now should I laugh? Except people start getting blown away and it’s all kind of strange. “15 Minutes” is about how long this movie was successful. I give it a “4” on the scale.
Friday, March 2nd, 2001
I’m mostly amused that some of the left-leaning weekly Westside newspapers are already spoofing this movie because it’s title seems to imply this is a grand Mexican story with authentic Mexican stars in it, when, in fact, it’s just another Brad Pitt-Julia Roberts movie. The title refers to a valuable antique gun which Pitt must retrieve from Mexico and bring back to his mob-type bosses in L.A.. Not particularly original a plot, is it? Pitt plays a guy named Jerry and to make sure he gets the job done, the mob-type guys take his girlfriend, Samantha, played by Julia Roberts, hostage. The guy sent to hold her “captive” until Jerry shows up with the gun is named Leroy, and he’s played by James Gandolfini. Gandolfini is the lead character on that HBO series “The Sopranos”. This is the show I hear way too much about in relation to it’s something like two million viewers. The show I now won’t watch because it could never live up to all the hype. Anyway, Leroy takes Samantha hostage, and, wouldn’t you know it, they bond. Is the plot getting any more original for you? It turns out our big tough guy killer is gay, and because Samantha and Jerry are having relationship problems, he’s there for Samantha in her hour of need with terrific insights into love and attraction and all that. You’re either going to get into this part of the story or you’re not, and I did not. I tired of Roberts’ acting after a while. I could see it in the way she went over the top on a few emotional rampages. As for Gandolfini, he’s a fine actor, but this Leroy character was too cute, too invented. And if that wasn’t bad enough, things take a really bizarre turn about half-way through the movie when Leroy picks up a postal worker named Frank. I won’t give away too much here but even I was bummed out by the subsequent events and I’m generally stone cold to anything that happens to the people up there on the screen in that make believe world. It’s one of the few times I would have preferred the usual Hollywood ending to this part of the story, but it was not to be.
This leaves you with the other half of the story and that’s Jerry running around Mexico trying to get that gun. Jerry is a screw-up. He’s the kind of guy who can’t tell his ass from his elbow yet you know he’s going to stumble through this. When he first arrives in Mexico it’s actually pretty funny as the locals size up this dopey “Gringo”. From there it’s a mixture of laughs and frights as Jerry gets the gun, loses the gun, gets the gun back, loses it, etc.. But this eventually loses steam. With about a half-hour to go, I started to look at the watch. And I began to wonder why Jerry got selected for this mission since he’s such a screw-up and this gun is so valuable. Well, hang in on that one. Eventually, Gene Hackman shows up and ties up all the loose ends. It’s just by that time, I’d pretty much had it. It is interesting to note that along with explaining why Jerry was sent to get the gun, the Hackman character also explains the story of the gun. It’s legendary origins. And you know what? I started to find that story, illustrated through authentic looking flashback fantasy scenes, more interesting than Jerry and Samantha and Leroy and all the rest of them. That doesn’t bode well.
Now don’t get me wrong. “The Mexican” isn’t a really horrible movie. Things are actually explained pretty well in the end and Jerry, Samantha and Leroy all have some good moments. The legend of the gun is a good fairy tale too, one of romance and true love and sacrifice. But if you’re expecting that from Roberts and Pitt, you may have wandered into the wrong theatre. I noticed the showing I attended was about seventy-five percent women in the audience. Here’s a warning – this movie is not a happy Julia-Brad romantic comedy. It can be crude, rude and violent. Besides, they’re barely onscreen together. There, I said it. I may be wrong, but I think some of those women didn’t know what was coming. “The Mexican”, after all, is about a gun. I give it a “6”.
