The Matador (2005 - Richard Shepard)
There's some good character work by Pierce Brosnan here, obviously trying to take a darkly comic left turn from James Bond. Unfortunately for him and the viewer, the movie runs out of plot and energy in the last act. Brosnan is Julian Noble, an aging, burnt-out assassin who has been successfully hiring out to the highest bidder for at least a couple decades. But the stress and amorality of the job has caught up with him, as has his age. Down in Mexico City for a quick hit he meets Danny (Greg Kinnear), an average Joe, down-on-his-luck businessman from Denver who doesn't realize how good he has it. The uncouth and obnoxious Julian, depressed over having no friends of any sort to share his birthday with, introduces himself and the two form a sort of reluctant friendship. The next day Julian decides to tell his new pal what he actually does for a living.
Unfortunately after that fairly promising set-up, a nice dark yet playful tone, and some really nice work by Pierce (the best role he's had in years, and he enjoys every second of it) the movie doesn't know where to go after that. You can do a lot worse than
The Matador and it does have a few medium-sized laughs along the way, but the potential of the first half of the movie is just plain not realized in the second half. It writes itself into a corner and just sort of ends. The writer/director Richard Shepard (
The Linguini Incident) has some style going for him, nice cinematography, good actors (Kinnear, Hope Davis and Philip Baker Hall are all good, but Brosnan is the standout), and nowhere to go. Too bad. Stay home and watch the vastly superior in every way
Grosse Pointe Blank if you want a fresh, hysterical and well-written dark comedy about a hitman and his crisis of conscience. Go see
Munich on the big screen if you want a serious, complex and action-packed story of an assassin. Rent
The Matador when it's on the shelf of the videostore this summer where you won't be nearly as let-down and disappointed.
GRADE: C+
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...it wasn't as good as I thought it would be but I did get a few chuckles out of it (the lemmings part)
I liked it alot. I said more about it in the King Kong thread, so I won't repeat myself here.
It was a fun, popcorn flick, date movie. It could be picked apart if you want to, but after a stressful month, I liked seeing something light and fun. Also, I liked Jim Carrey with Tea Leoni together...they made a good pair.
