Everyone’s an expert on the Panama Canal nowadays.

Largely, that’s a result of President-elect Donald Trump openly musing about taking the canal back from Panama.  As soon as Trump uttered those words, every self-appointed pundit on every social media site in existence immediately jumped over to Wikipedia and skimmed over the articles on Panama, the Panama Canal, and Teddy Roosevelt.  Then, after Jimmy Carter died, those same people jumped onto Wikipedia and skimmed articles about Carter selling the canal to Panama for a dollar and the controversy that followed.  For weeks, it has been impossible to look at Twitter or Bluesky or even Mastodon without seeing someone giving their opinion on the canal, the 1989 American invasion of Panama, and the connection between the CIA and Manuel Noriega, the man who served as Panama’s military dictator for most of the 80s before being deposed and tossed into prison for being a drug smuggler.

Myself, I know better than to get my information from Wikipedia.  Instead, I get my information from movies.  For that reason, I attempted to educate myself on Panama and the canal by watching 2000’s Noriega: God’s Favorite.

Directed by Roger Spottiswoode, Noriega: God’s Favorite opens with a title card informing us of the story so far.  Manuel Noriega was born in the slums of Panama.  He grew up in poverty and was shunned because his mother was not married to his father.  Noriega spent his youth doing whatever he had to do in order to survive.  He was clever and ruthless but it wasn’t until he entered the Panamanian National Guard that he was able to really use those skills to his advantage.  Noriega became a CIA asset and worked his way through the ranks.  In 1983, with the support of American intelligence, Noriega became the de facto dictator of Panama, even though he never officially held any sort of title or executive position.

The film follows Manuel Noriega (Bob Hoskins) over the course of his final years as Panama’s dictator.  He’s portrayed as being a ruthless man who often pretends to be a buffoon in order to get his enemies to underestimate him.  He works with the CIA but still passes along intelligence to Fidel Castro (Michael Sorich), who is seen hitting on Noriega’s wife (Denise Blasor) during a visit to Cuba.  Noriega presents himself as a family man while having a number of mistresses.  He claims to an ally in the United States’s War on Drugs while attending cocaine-fueled parties.  He presents himself as being a pragmatist while actually being very superstitious.  A CIA agent (Edward Ellis) wins Noriega’s trust by manipulatively interpreting Bible verses for him.  When an army officer (played by Nestor Carbonell) tries to lead a coup against Noriega, he can only watch helplessly as Noriega personally executed all of his co-conspirators, going so far as to even chop off one man’s hands.  By the end of the scene, Noriega is drenched in blood but he’s undeniably happy.  Everyone knows that Noriega is an impulsive and dangerous dictator but the CIA allows him to stay in power until he starts to become an inconvenience.  Once Noriega’s notoriety starts to overshadow his usefulness, the U.S. promptly invades and Noriega’s power crumbles around him.

Bob Hoskins might seem like a strange choice to play a South American dictator but he does a good job in Noriega, playing the title character as being both a charismatic dictator and also an overgrown child who has never gotten over the struggles of his youth.  (Early on in the film, he is seen getting treatments to smooth his pockmarked skin, an indication that all the power in the world can’t cure lifelong insecurity.)  In the end, Noriega has much in common with the gangster that Hoskins played in The Long Good Friday.  Noriega is ruthless enough to become powerful but he ultimately falls victim to his own hubris.  When you’re in charge of something as valuable as the Panama Canal, the last thing you should do is anger the country that built it.