>>REVIEW
THE MATADOR
STARRING Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear and Hope Davis
DIRECTED BY Richard Shepard
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Usually the best part of going to movies these days are the trailers – three-minute short films that condense any film into a riveting, or at least palatable version of its longer self. There is the odd time, though, when the trailer gives the impression that a film will be a total misfire, and if you’ve seen the one for The Matador, it looks like a contrived mess.
Pierce Brosnan stars as Julian Noble, a hitman who, unlike the graceful matador that is seen during the opening credits, is a sleazy murderer, whose back-alley sex and booze lifestyle has burned him out. While on a job in Mexico City, he meets Danny (Greg Kinnear), who is there to snag a big business contract. The two meet at a hotel bar, where each man’s faithlessness and fears create some sort of needy emotional connection.
Six months later, Kinnear and his wife Bean (played by the always great Hope Davis) are doing well, their middle-class fears tucked safely behind them. Then Julian shows up on their doorstep, in trouble with the professional killing powers that be, asking for Danny’s help.
What happens next isn’t the rote comedic nonsense that audiences are trained to expect – I’d say it’s the intelligent version of The Whole Nine Yards, aspiring to be much more than that cinematic tripe. Yes, many of the jokes are stale and distracting (i.e. Julian’s repeated use of whore metaphors to describe everything), but the film explores ideas about death that are surprisingly enlightened and resonant. The scenes with Kinnear and Davis are wonderful (ideally deserving a film of their own) and while Brosnan has the shallow job of playing the catalyst to it, he’s in fine form – a leathery, womanizing piece of jet trash.
Richard Shepard’s direction might be the most impressive thing about the film, working it through the occasionally mundane plotline with great verve. That said, if you can tolerate the film’s rather dumb exposition, The Matador is a strange oddity that hopefully finds its audience. |
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