The filmmaker's way around this is to make Andy Osnard (Brosnan) an ass. He's an ass because some other people in the film say he's an ass and because he tries to bed every woman in sight. That's still pretty much James Bond, so Osnard uses a lot of bad words Brosnan couldn't possibly convey the difference any other way. That would be like asking a fish to fly.

I'm not exactly clear on why Osnard believes a word said by tailor Harry Pendel (Geoffrey Rush), since Osnard walks into Pendel's little tailor shop in Panama and confronts him about his lies to the community and to his wife, Louisa (Jamie Lee Curtis). Pendel has a criminal history and learned tailoring in prison, but he paints himself as a respectable man. Osnard knows Pendel is both a liar and deeply in debt -- is it that hard to conclude that Pendel's information regarding Panamanian political secrets might be just a tad suspect?

Perhaps the whole point of this movie is to demonstrate that if you tell people what they want to hear, they'll listen to nearly anything. Desperation is the soup of the day in this film, and everyone is having a slurp. Unfortunately, as themes go, it's one of those cold, nasty soups served in swank restaurants where people pay extra for what amounts to yesterday's leftovers. Bad movie ideas, like bad soup, rarely become more palatable when left out overnight.