The difference between Mel Gibson’s and Bruce Willis’s recent losing streaks is dignity. And I don’t mean the comparatively more dignified air that a slightly bigger budget confers upon Gibson’s latest as opposed to Willis’s (if the former’s are made on a shoestring, the latter’s bring to mind a loafer). My point is that, while Willis is dragged down by the material, Gibson elevates it – at least as far as his character is concerned; the overall outcome tends to be less than the sum of its parts, but the fact remains that Gibson’s part is usually the best, if not the only good thing about the movie (case in point, his turn as an alcoholic actor who runs afoul of the law in Last Looks shows a healthy willingness to satirize his own public image).
Consider for instance what Variety had to say of Gibson’s performance in 2019’s The Professor and the Madman: “the good news is that Gibson is fine; it's everything else that doesn't work.” The same could be said of pretty much every film he has been in since, and Panama is no exception. Here is a movie that isn’t bad just because of its low quality but also for its lack of basic goodness – a jingoistic and hypocritical affair that not only justifies the United States invasion of Panama in the late 80s-early 90s (the narration opens with “there's nothing more rock and roll than taking out the bad guys for the red, white and blue” and, to prove it wasn’t being sarcastic, finishes with “We caught Noriega with his drawers down”; never mind that Noriega had been for years on the CIA’s payroll), but at the same time purports to be down with the Panamanian people.
What the filmmakers, however, know about Panama’s 20th century history could fit in a pinhead and there’d be enough room left for the Lord’s prayer. For example, a comandante with the contras spins a sob story about how “Sandinistas came in the middle of the night, woke [his parents] up and shot them. And my wife and my daughter. Noriega ordered them killed.” Is it just me, or does that wording makes it sound as if the Sandinistas – i.e., the once and future rulers of Nicaragua – took orders from Noriega? Something tells me Daniel Ortega might beg to differ.
PS. The character who tells this story is given the unfortunate name “Steadman Fagoth Muller,” (which sounds like an ill-advised homage to Life of Brian’s “Biggus Dickus”). Why is he called thus? So we can hear how “When he was a child, his middle name was the subject of teasing, so he beat up everyone who tried to make a joke of it and forced them all to call him by his full name.” Pray tell, why would a Panamanian (or Nicaraguan, I’m still not sure) person – or an earthling, for that matter – have such an alien-sounding name? And, having it, why would he be teased for it in a Spanish-speaking country? I mean, if bassoon players (‘fagotistas’ in Spanish) get a pass, why wouldn’t he?