The Matador (2005)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

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.

Julian Noble and Danny Wright meet at a bar....It seems they have become life long friends, until Noble reveals his profession, he is a contract killer, Danny frightened by this wants nothing to do with Julian...Until Noble comes calling one night, in search of friendship and a little help, on a job.I was not expecting anything marvellous from this movie, but I have to say I did laugh quite a bit at Pierce Brosnan as he hung up his Armani suits and took on a role that was as far away from Bond as possible, but at the same time he held a gun.Greg Kinnear is surprisingly quite funny as well, playing the everyday average salesman whose only crime in life is that he cares for people, even the bad ones...The sexual innuendos and rude jokes are just hilarious, as Brosnan lets himself go.

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.

I enjoyed this movie quite a bit more than I necessarily expected to. I remember seeing some things about it around the time it was released and it sounded somewhat interesting but not like something I needed to rush out and see. After all, it's not like Greg Kinnear is the king of any sane person's film universe, although I used to enjoy him on "Movietime" and "E" doing the Talk Soup. Pierce Brosnan is somebody who I hadn't seen in a movie until a few years ago when I saw the excellent "Seraphim Falls", since I tend to avoid James Bond movies. But something about the pairing of these two guys seemed appealing, and the movie bears out that instinct. These guys are fun to watch together, they have a real natural chemistry that makes even some of the film's weaker scenes flow very neatly.I like the fact that this is sort of a tough, violent movie that has a decent amount of blood and sex in it, but it's not raunchy in the way that Quentin Tarantino's movies are, not in a sort of way that's designed to appeal to 15 year old boys. The whole joke and premise of the movie is basically that this guy who Brosnan plays is no longer hardcore, he's basically a self-appointed failure in the middle of a nervous breakdown. In the end the Kinnear character is more hardcore than he is, and that's a great premise I think to hang the movie around since it's ultimately only a 90 minute piece of fluff anyway. Nobody should go away hoping for any kind of revelations on the human spirit, and although I liked Hope Davis in the role I thought the movie could have done with maybe a bit less dramatic scenes with her and Kinnear. It's great to see how well Kinnear can handle drama though, and the other major reversal inherent in the premise is to have Brosnan play the goofier character and have Kinnear play the more serious role. I think a lot of times when you reverse expectations that way you get a very fresh movie with fresh performances.It'll never be known as a classic or anything, but this is going to be one of those movies that gets brought up at a party or in a bar and maybe the 2 or 3 people who did see it will all chime in with "hey, yeah that was pretty good wasn't it?". Not quite "the greatest cocktail party story you ever heard" but not too far either. I like the fact that Julian, the Brosnan character, was quite the prick and the movie didn't go out of its way to make him likable. It's interesting to see a charming actor like Brosnan basically tread water and try to pull through a character like that and make him appealing in some way.