The Matador (2005)

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

With so many mindless movies coming out of Hollywood these days, what a refresh to see this film. An affirmation that movies are still being written and filmed by intelligent people. The dialog is superb. The acting is superb and the plot is genius.Pierce Brosnan is one of the most underrated actors of his time. It's easy to write this "pretty boy" off, but he just simply delivers time and time again. Greg Kinnear as well, but he does seem to be "hit or miss" in movies these days. This is definitely a hit! Speaking as a middle aged, white suburban male - it's all our dream to one day break from the mundane day to day life we hold and be pulled into something more exciting (with or without our consent). The kind of excitement we only fantasize about. As human beings we're meant to do so much more with our lives than just wake at 6am and go to an office each day. This movie plays out the "all too common" man losing a grip on his own life, and marriage, only to be resurrected by an odd and completely unexpected acquaintance. Pierce Brosnan nails the role of an eccentric and crazy man searching for meaning in his life. The relationship that develops between Brosnan and Kinnear is developed and written/acted to perfection. By the end of the movie you're wondering if these two completely polar opposite men are brothers.A really well written movie with excellent acting. Very much worth a view.

This is a strange one, which curiously does not really concern matadors either. Pierce Brosnan is brilliant at playing a professional hit man who is going to pieces psychologically because he is burnt-out and can no longer carry out his murder assignments. I do not really approve of films in which hit men are portrayed as socially acceptable, and like the proverbial 'prostitute with the heart of gold', are really nice and admirable people if we can just understand them and try not to be prejudiced against them. We live in an age of moral relativism at best, or should I say moral nihilism. And it is an interesting sociological question to ask why it is that so many films are made about hit men. What is it about professional killers that makes us want to devote film after film to them? Are there no more pleasant characters we could consider instead? Is it really funny when hit men are involved in comic situations? Ha ha ha. He couldn't pull the trigger, silly fellow, so let's give him a drink and try and cheer him up. And let's all have a laugh at his inability to carry out an assassination. Now, seriously, is this what we should be watching? The 'buddy' of the killer is played by Greg Kinnear, whose role as Jack Kennedy in the mini-series THE KENNEDYS (2011, see my review), I have already described previously as a brilliant portrayal. He is a fine actor who does an excellent job of being a 'normal guy' and, hence, a bit of a simpleton when compared to the much cleverer Brosnan, who has the good sense to be a professional assassin (the implication being that if Kinnear weren't such a fool, he would be out there killing people too). When asked to help kill someone, Kinnear at first refuses, but then enthusiastically joins in. His resistance is pretty feeble, and the moral to viewers seems to be: come on, folks, why not join in the fun? Let's all kill people for money, it's great. Pardon my dissenting voice in this matter. Although the film is witty, funny, and amusing, it is also morally deeply disturbing and should not have been made. It merely adds one more drop to the drip-drip-drip of what remains of the moral fabric of our civilisation going down the drain. But hey, let's live for the moment, oil our guns, and enjoy killing people while we can. Yes, this is a highly civilised film, a film about a civilisation which is in such a state of terminal decadence that even plenty of laughter cannot save it.

Only recently, I have purchased some of the DVD sets of the old TV shows from the 1980's, the great classics of entertainment and by today's standards as cheesy as they have ever been. Among them is the first season of "Remington Steele", about a detective named Laura Holt, who invents a male boss in order to attract more clients, until one day a strange con man takes over the imaginary part of Remington Steele and from that point on works with Laura solving cases of all sorts. That was the first big role of a young man named Pierce Brosnan, but when the show was taken off the air after six successful years, Brosnan's career kicked into really high gears. He played the famous British agent James Bond in four films, but after "Die another Day", almost a parody on the franchise, he was dismissed from the role and went on to star in other projects.Pierce Brosnan, who coincidentally got a hold of Richard Shepard's script, not only agreed to take over the leading role but also became one of the producers, causing the film's budget to rise significantly. It seems as if this movie was exactly what he was looking for and after being the action hero for so long, and the stylish British gentleman, he finally gets to play an unpleasant, rude and bad ass character, who completely goes against anything he has played before. The result is an entertaining mix of comedy and drama about an unusual friendship that takes a couple of unexpected twists and turns.Julian Noble is a professional hit man, who believes he has the greatest job in the world and travels all over the planet to take out his targets. He doesn't have a home, not a single friend and his romantic interests merely consist of one-night affairs with hookers. Danny Wright on the other hand is a regular businessman, who lost his only son in a school bus accident, is happily married with his high school sweetheart, and now travels to Mexico City to sign a contract that could save his career. The two men, that couldn't be any more different from each other, meet at the hotel bar one night and after a couple of rude remarks by Julian and immediate apologies the two begin to form somewhat of a friendship. Julian takes Danny to the bull fighting arena, where he reveals himself to be an assassin and even demonstrates how he would take out his target. But Danny is not appalled but merely fascinated by this strange man, and ultimately Julian even asks his new friend to help him with one of his jobs. As it turns out though, Julian begins to doubt himself and his unethical profession and after screwing up several of his contracts, his bosses put out a hit on him, causing him to seek the help of his only friend, Danny."The Matador" is a very interesting little film that made it lot out of its limited possibilities. Despite having Pierce Brosnan in the leading role, who is always a good candidate for a fast-paced action movie, there are very little action scenes in this film, and it is more of a buddy comedy and relationship drama. Although there are some funny scenes, mostly coming from the dialogs between Danny and Julian, especially when the latter makes one of his inappropriate comments, there are also some somber moments, especially involving Danny and his dead son. The film is R-rated, so you will find your typical use of several f-words, but I would be more concerned with the large number of sexual jokes. Richard Shepard, whose previous work mostly consists of B-movies wrote a dynamic script that mostly focuses on the strange relationship of Julian and Danny, two wonderfully constructed characters with their flaws and good sides to them. But he ultimately concentrates so much on them, that the characters and their dialogs completely dominate the film and the plot is somewhat neglected in the process. There is only a very fragile story attached to this 90 minute film, which causes it to run very slow for some time, especially once the setting shifts from Mexico City to Denver. The other issue with this film is the set design, which was very austere at times, and I had a hard time finding where the $10 Million of budget went.Pierce Brosnan is at his very best in this film and this might be his finest work ever. He is unbelievably funny, and completely contrary to his usual image, does stuff like walking through a hotel bar lobby in underwear, make a rude joke after hearing about Danny's dead son and, of course, instead of the obligatory "shaken, not stirred" Vodka Martini he now drinks Margaritas, four of five of them in a row even. Julian Noble is an obnoxious, but likable character, and without Pierce Brosnan this film certainly would have lost a lot of its freshness and charm. Greg Kinnear plays Danny, a regular guy, who stands in complete contrast to Julian Noble. While he doesn't get to shine as much as Brosnan, whose role is simply better written, he does a fantastic job both as the nerdy businessman, and later the cool assistant of Julian. There is also Hope Davis as Danny's cute wife Bean and Philipp Baker Hall as Julian's handler, who appears in maybe two scenes for a total screen time of less than five minutes.Without Pierce Brosnan, "The Matador" would have been a typical independent film without any stars, but a strong script that is shown on a couple of film festivals and then is never heard of again. But instead, this film has now turned into something bigger, changing the image of Pierce Brosnan's character repertoire forever, and providing its audience with a wonderful film about a friendship that is not always top-notch, but enjoyable nevertheless.

Brosnan's performance of a lifetime. Utterly compelling, beautiful and tragic. If only more people would give this movie a chance. Comparable to Grosse Point Blank on many levels it contains the same multiple layers of character detail and deeper message behind the surface detail, minus the action. The movie's title may have contributed to its relative quiet box office performance, acting more as a metaphor for the movie's protagonist than an exciting description of the splendid script. Real, honest performances grace this movie and even gives us an ending John Hughes would have been proud of in his 80's pomp. I would have loved to have seen Brosnan receive the big accolades for his performance, and to be honest it exasperates me to know it was largely ignored by the big awards, a best supporting actor nomination at the Golden Globes the only real acknowledgement.