Anyone who's seen the old Alec Guinness film will recognise this as a close relative of Our Man in Havana. Seedy, amoral MI6 man Osnard (Pierce Brosnan: 007 gone to the dogs) is banished to Panama for sundry misdemeanours. Panama, he's told, is 'Casablanca without heroes - where no good deed goes unpunished'. Smooth-talking his way past embassy officials, one of whom (Catherine McCormack) he beds faster than you can say James Bond, Osnard has soon battened on to local tailor Harry (Geoffrey Rush), whom he knows is an ex-con with money worries, as a source of local info. Harry is reluctant, but does need $50,000. His fertile imagination has soon dreamt up a 'silent opposition', led by his disfigured secretary (Leonor Varela) and drunken friend (Brendan Gleeson) - both victims of the old Noriega regime - as well as an auction to buy the Canal, with France, China and Japan as bidders. The web of deceit, swallowed whole by Osnard and his bosses, leads to tragedy and disaster. Though never quite sure if it's comedy or drama, the film does reel you in to its story thread, with Brosnan well attuned to this nasty piece of work. One or two characters, though, are rather too silly, and Rush's wife (Jamie Lee Curtis) would surely never hunt the town for her husband in such a ludicrously plunging neckline.