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 Entertainment | January 2006 
'Matador' Could Be A Hit With Killer Performance
 James Verniere - Boston Herald
Have you heard the one about the traveling salesman and the lonely hit man? The trouble is: You probably have.
Not to be confused with the 1986 Pedro Almodovar film ”Matador” or with the many other films with the word ”matador” - literally ”one who hits” - in the title, Richard Shepard’s ”The Matador” is an odd-couple tale about a hit man having a midlife crisis and the Felix Ungar-esque salesman he meets and bonds with on assignment south of the border.
Julian Noble (Pierce Brosnan in a career-capping performance) is a jet-setting killer whose speciality is turning out the lights on people he does not know. Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear) is an amiable salesman who loves his wife, Bean (Hope Davis), and is in Mexico making a desperate pitch to save his company in the - ahem - cutthroat world of Internet business.
Julian is given his assignments by the mysterious Mr. Randy (Philip Baker Hall) and is sent on his way to any number of glamorous world capitals. When his bloody duty is done, usually with a collapsible sniper’s rifle and a single, muffled shot to the head, cash arrives in large quantities, no questions asked.
Danny Wright, whose name is perhaps a tad too indicative of his boyish nature, is the proverbial ordinary ”nice guy,” while Julian, who has a caterpillarlike mustache and an expensive-looking haircut, is the bad boy whose bad habits include smoking, drinking, whoring and, of course, killing.
Danny is a schlub who wouldn’t hurt a fly, while Julian, who jokingly describes himself as ”a facilitator of fatalities,” is a sharp dresser capable of spouting a Tarantino-worthy fountain of profanities. He - dare I say it? - possesses a James Bond-like familiarity with the fleshpots of such far-flung, exotic destinations as Bangkok, Thailand.
Before you can mutter, ”Haven’t I seen this movie before?” Julian is recruiting a reluctant Danny to create a diversion while he pops his target at a Mexican bullring. They part company, but afterward things go wrong for Julian. He loses his taste for killing, turns into a drunken, burned-out case and hears the coded death sentence, ”Mr. Stick is upset.”
Next stop, Julian arrives at Danny and Bean’s suburban Denver home in time for Christmas to hide from the hit men on his trail. ”For an assassin, he’s very nice,” observes Bean.
”The Matador,” which was written and directed by TV veteran Shepard, is full of vibrant Mexican color and detail and nice work by an extremely talented cast. Brosnan and Kinnear have some chemistry even if their odd-couple pairing is reminiscent of a lot of previous films, including Billy Wilder’s ”Buddy Buddy,” a 1981 adaptation of a Francis Veber farce with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in similar roles.
The film has a lot going for it, particularly Brosnan in the title role. What it does not have is much novelty. These hit man-in-crisis movies have become such a Hollywood staple that the character has gone from interesting, existential figure to all-purpose, lazy-writer/director crutch and cliche.
And what the world does not need is another Tarantino copycat.
(”The Matador” contains profanity, sexual situations and violence.) |
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