David Hayman

A tailor living in Panama reluctantly becomes a spy for a British Agent. John le Carré's spy thriller is brought to the big screen. A British spy is banished to Panama after having an affair with an ambassador's mistress. Once there he makes connection with a local tailor with a criminal past and connections to all of the top political and gangster figures in Panama. The tailor also has a wife, who works for the canal administrator, and a huge debt. The spy's mission is to learn what the President intends to do with the Panama Canal, but he's really in business for himself, blackmailing the tailor into spinning a fantastic tale about the canal being sold to China and former mercenaries ready to topple the current government. —John Sacksteder <jsackste@bellsouth.net>

The film opens on 12 October 1978, with several police officers dragging Sid Vicious (Gary Oldman) out of the Hotel Chelsea following the death of his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen (Chloe Webb). Sid is soon driven to a police station and upon arrival is asked to describe what happened. Police officers become frustrated when Sid is visibly troubled and unable to speak. A little more than a year earlier, in 1977, close friends and band members Sid and Johnny Rotten (Andrew Schofield) meet Nancy, a heroin-addicted groupie who had come to London to bed the Sex Pistols. Sid dismisses her at first, as her sexual intentions are obvious, but begins dating her after feeling sympathy for the rejection she faces from fellow punk stars and after she sells him heroin; it is implied that she introduces him to the drug. The two fall deeply in love, but their self-destructive, drug-fueled relationship frays Sid's relationship with the rest of the band, which eventually breaks up on 17 January 1978, in the midst of a disastrous American tour which features Sid strung out of his mind, often drunk or on meth, and physically violent. Although several of his friends and acquaintances warn him of Nancy's devastating effect on his life, Sid stubbornly ignores these warnings. Sid, now living in New York, attempts to start a solo career with Nancy as his manager, only to be dismissed as a has-been. By now, both he and Nancy are heavily addicted to heroin, and Nancy has spiraled into a deep depression. Sid loses interest in Nancy sexually and wants out of a suicide pact he made with her. Their love affair ends tragically one night when, during an argument in which Sid announces his plans to stop using heroin and return to England to re-start his life, a suicidal Nancy begs him to kill her. She attacks him and they fight in a drug-induced haze, leading to him stabbing her, although whether or not it was intentional is left to interpretation. They fall asleep and later Nancy awakes and stumbles into the bathroom, where she collapses and dies. Sid is bailed out temporarily by his mother who is also a heroin addict. After getting a pizza, some kids convince him to dance with them. Some time later, a taxi picks Sid up and he believes he finds Nancy alive in the back seat. The two embrace as the cab drives off. A postscript says that Vicious died of an intentional heroin overdose, and he now shares a grave with Nancy. Their gravestone reads: "R.I.P. Nancy and Sid."