Noriega: God's Favorite

When a TV movie premiers on BBC2 (a minority UK channel) after midnight you take it is a read that this is not going to be very good -- and I wasn't proved far wrong. While title lead Bob Hoskins does his admirable best with a tough part for him to play physically the rest is just a tick list of all the events that formed his later life.

Having read up on the subject it is all there, present and correct: Drugs, corruption, the Contra affair and Ollie North, black magic, marriage problems. Not to mention the US invasion of his country of Panama and his hiding out in a church embassy.

However I wouldn't have liked to re-tell the story from what I saw here!

Naturally we are viewing the Third World from a First World perspective (well I am anyway) and that isn't easy. Noriega learnt the rules from others and while a cruel and despotic man, he wasn't a fool. Why -- he questions -- does the USA love drugs so much "does the gringo have no soul?"

(The people who produce/traffic drugs often laugh at the people that consume them -- for them they view the product for what it is, a lucrative poison.)

You'd be hard pushed to get this is all in if you spent a 100 million dollars and spread it over a mini series. This is a 120 minute film and while I don't know the budget from what I see on the screen it is obviously on the low side.

Dictators (let us take the "corrupt" as read) are always filmed in ultra close-up showing their rage and frustration, ready to do anything at anytime (this is why they feature in so many films!), but General Noriega is also shown as a bit of a hen-pecked clown. The boy from the wrong side of the tracks who, with a chip on both shoulders, climbed to the top while -- strangely -- partly controlled by the catholic church and a love of cheap sexual thrills.

(The movie seems to be suggesting some kind of bisexuality that I hadn't heard about before.)

A man who had a love-hate relationship with America and America responding by having a love-hate relationship with him.

While this movie seems to have it all: Power, drugs, corruption, explosions, rise-and fall, it actually has very little. I viewed the whole matter with cold detachment wondering if the Noriega was living in Panama or some kind of private Disneyland.

All-in-all a bit of a failure -- but an extra star of being a brave failure.

This story of Noriega is an interesting mix of tragedy and comedy. It tells the story of a human monster who evidently just wanted love. Hoskins is wonderfully adept at capturing the odd combination of evil and humor needed to make such a strange story work.

The film also illustrates the way the US so often shoots itself in the foot by first supporting and then being betrayed by little tin gods -- and also betraying the people that we induce to fight the tin gods. Maybe we will learn the lesson someday, but not yet.

Noriega seems to be, indeed, God's favorite because he gets away with so much and never seems to be terribly scathed. Maybe Noriega is an example of God's sense of humor. If so, he validates the old saying that God works in strange ways -- or, in this case, laughs in strange ways.

This was a medium low budget, made for cable TV film. The emphasis and framing device are at least different from the usual "biopic". I cannot speak for the veracity of the film, although I do recall a fair amount of this stuff from when it was going on, particularly the invasion. The film glosses over the fact that it took a week or so to get Noriega to surrender from the papal nunciate, and that he negotiated a few small concessions in return. If the film was considered comedic, that largely escaped me. Interesting that johnnyb2000_ seems to think that the film would be more true to events if made by Oliver Stone! But he is correct that no one should try to get their history from a movie. Any movie. Bob Hoskins was odd casting for Noriega, but he seemed incapable of putting in a bad performance. Rosa Blasi was good as well. But overall, I can't really recommend this film.

It is hard to find a person who is both extremely evil and at the same time funny. Well Noriega was it. He was basically a walking-parody of every dictator the world has ever known. He was so mad many of the things he said and did were funny (in a black comedy sort of way). He was so evil anyone could write a book out of all the horrors he committed during the years he ruled over Panama. And strangely, his luck ended only after he was finally apprehended.

Usually, movies based in real-life events often fail to be accurate. Well, in this movie, even the uniforms worn by the military were exact replicas of the real thing. And Noriega did have a picture of Hitler in his office. And he did have a statue of the Virgin Mary next to it. And he was a vegetarian. Also a voodoo priest. And the people who tried to overthrow him made the mistake of leaving him alone in his office as the movie shows. Everything you see in this movie happened more or less. The real Noriega said some of the crazy things you can hear in this film. He did the horrors you see in this movie and even more. He survived two coups, Colombian cartels and an American invasion of Panama.

This movie basically has it all. It is a black comedy, a violent drama, and it gives you the chance to get a glimpse of a part of history most people have forgotten. Excellent performance by Bob Hoskins. Lawrence Wright did an excellent job with the script. This movie never fails to entertain, educate and at the same time bring to life a very enigmatic and dark person: Tony Noriega.

When the previous ruler dies in a plane crash, General Noriega seizes control of Panama despite having a history of corruption and cruelty. With connections to both drug cartels and the CIA, Noriega is a typically small-time 'tin-pot dictator' who finds himself being forced out of power by those around him until he takes it by force. With a battle of words and might with the US, Noriega gradually finds himself out of his depth as he tries to get more and more of what he wants.

I didn't know anything about Noriega before I watched this movie – in fact if I had known less then I might have assumed that this was a biopic about an American rapper! However the film opens with a 'history for dummies' about Panama and Noriega that helps set the scene for a story that is very simplistic and liberal with the facts but is still fun and interesting to watch. The film sweeps across Noriega's connections with cartels and the US and focuses more on his character than anything else. The sweep of facts means that it is difficult to trust it and it is not a film to watch if you wish to be well informed but it seems to touch on the bullet points as a vague summary and I found it valuable to take in the basics and learn a little if not a lot. The film pitches the film with an amusing air and it follows this through into the title character.

Here Noriega is a character of some comedy but not totally played for laughs. He is greedy, corrupt and desperate and, as such, could easily be any similar ruler of a small country! The film paints this character for entertainment rather than education but at times it manages to adopt a serious enough tone to avoid just being a bit of fluff. In fact it also injects humour into the role the US plays in the country and it is none too flattering in its depiction of the CIA etc. This is not to say that this is very real because I doubt that this is the full story as it should be told but it is enough to do the job. Hoskins was a strange choice but he does it quite well and is responsible for good a good job mixing the humour with the serious side even if he doesn't give a performance so much as a caricature of a small time dictator! The support cast is mostly good and has quite a few familiar faces but the film pretty much belongs to Hoskins.

Overall not a great film if you are looking for a factual story that you will learn from but it is an entertaining film that has enough basis in fact to be interesting and to give you a good overview of the man's story. The amusing tone makes for an enjoyable story and, although not a great performance, Hoskins does well to mix the comic with the serious and produce a film that is interesting and entertaining and worth seeing as long as you come prepared for the fact that it is far from being a factual historic film.