SHOOTING THE MOON

A rollicking but slippery rendition of the prosecution of the pockmarked potentate of Panama.

Harris (The Last Stand, 1996), who began his career as an antiwar activist, now produces investigative journalism of the big screen, good-guys-vs.-bad-guys variety. Here the bad guys are Manuel Noriega, the Medellín cocaine cartel, and especially the members of the Reagan and Bush administrations who came into contact with them. The good guys are a couple of underdog DEA agents and federal prosecutors in Miami who busted through the old boys’ network to investigate and indict Noriega—an indictment that, ironically, led to an invasion of Panama championed by many of the general’s former protectors. The story is told colorfully, with lots of tough-guy cop-talk, scummy informers, and brief cutaways to beleaguered wives. It’s unquestionably readable, even if the outcome is too well-known to generate much suspense. There are even a few moments (such as the anecdote an informer relates to DEA agent Steve Grilli about Noriega’s escapades in an airplane cockpit) that rise to the level of classic tragicomedy. But Harris’s storytelling inspires no more trust than Hollywood’s. He provides no notes or attributions, even for direct quotes. He misrepresents legal issues integral to the case, for example confusing jurisdiction and venue. He coyly avoids names, even of obvious public figures, perhaps for legal reasons. And his tone is so stridently anti–Cold War and anti-Reagan that it’s hard to give his sloppy techniques the benefit of the doubt.

It’s too bad Harris didn’t take the trouble to document his sources, because if everything he says can be supported, he’s written an accessible, eye-opening account of one of the murkiest episodes in recent history. But it’s hard to take him seriously on his own merits.