If you're looking for lots of shooting or action, you'd better look elsewhere. This indie film is all about character . . . and tongue-in-cheek, anti-Bond humor.
Tools:
Recommend review to a friend »
Don't be misled by the packaging on this one. The Bond look—with a shadowy female backlit by fire and Pierce Brosnan pointing a pistol at you—is meant to be strictly tongue-in-cheek. Richard Shepard's dark comedy is so far from 007 that it's not even in the same area code.
After seeing Brosnan charm and finesse his way through four James Bond films, and, of course, recalling his "Remington Steele" years, it's a bit of a shock to see him shlump along from scene to scene in "The Matador." Brosnan plays a tackily-dressed hit man (we're talking cowboy booties and a Speed-o, folks) who's starting to lose his nerve and having Tony Soprano-style dreams and shut-downs. In Mexico, he meets your typical American Joe at a bar and insults him as he insults pretty much everyone. Charm? What's that? Pathetically friendless and needy, this hit man fixates on the poor businessman (Greg Kinnear), dogging him the way Bill Murray did his psychologist in "What About Bob?" As suave as Agent 007 was, Julian Noble is anything but—and that's a big pun intended.
When we first see Julian, he's waking up next to a naked woman, which is certainly something Mr. Bond has done on more than one occasion. But like the loser who has to take a picture of his conquest to show disbelieving buddies, Julian peeks under the sheet to have another giggling look at the woman's butt. Then, noticing her toenail polish, he rummages through her purse (the contents of which tip us off that she's a hooker, not someone who's succumbed to his devastating personality) and uses the polish to do his own tootsies! Bond was a lady-killer. Julian flirts with teenaged schoolgirls.
Needless to say, Mr. (Ig)Noble takes the sheen off being a hit man, presenting as unglamorous a figure as there can possibly be. He's frequently unshaven, often inarticulate, and sometimes comes across as a man who's perpetually poised on the brink of drunkenness or a hyper state of eccentricity. After a chance meeting in a Mexican bar, he seems desperate to bond with Danny Wright. (Okay, I have to say that the naming in this film gets a bit too precious—meeting Mr. Wright in a bar?). Conversation isn't enough. After revealing his occupation for the first time to someone other than his handler, Mr. Randy (Philip Baker Hall), Julian wants to show Danny how he pulls off a hit. He does so when they're at a bullfight together, and we viewers are supposed to see the similarities between the matador and the hit man.
But most viewers will be focused on the two stars, whose relationship on camera evolves with curious believability. This is an offbeat and, yes, dryly funny film that Shepard had no trouble selling at Sundance—though he had to get his money from some 30 sources. As oddball and far-fetched as the plot is, we gobble it up until Danny returns to his wife, Bean (Hope Davis) in Denver and one night before Christmas guess who turns up on their doorstep? Julian has a problem. He's blown a hit and people are after him. It turns out he gets one last chance to make amends, and he needs Danny's help to get him a clear shot at the mark. Here's where it gets a little too inexplicably like "Fun with Dick and Jane," with Bean fawning all over the hit man and wanting to see his gun and hold it (Freudians, stop laughing). If you think too hard about the couple's motivations, the last third of the film will seem contrived and hard to swallow. Thankfully, the three actors deliver such wonderful performances and click so well together that we're easily diverted.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]18955[/release]