Our first delivery is The Matador. This film intrigued me. When I was a kid my mom always watched Remington Steele and I’ve been a fan of Pierce Brosnan ever since. It was definitely advertised as a comedy and I knew Pierce played a contract killer, but I had no idea what a dark comedy this film really was until I watched it.
Pierce plays Julian Noble. He’s a dick, plain and simple. This guy is a grade A, numero uno asshole. Julian is a contract killer who only likes three things: killing people, drinking and the ladies. That’s what he does in the film. He drinks. He kills people. He bangs chicks.
On assignment in Mexico, he meets Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear). Danny is the opposite of Julian. He’s down on his luck. Even though he has a beautiful and loving wife (Hope Davis), he and his wife lost their son in a bus accident, and he has a sales job that he’s been failing at for the past four years.
Julian is desperate for a friend, so after a couple of awkward conversations and a trip to a bullfight, he decides to take Danny into his world. He tells him what he does for a living, but Danny doesn’t believe him. So Julian tells him to pick someone out of the crowd and an intense scene follows where Julian shows Danny how he would go about killing this total stranger. Later that day, Julian asks Danny to help him with his next job. Danny declines, Julian gets pissed and their relationship ends…so we think.
Six months later Julian is a mess. He cannot concentrate on his work and his killings are getting messy. His employers get pissed and put a contract out on Julian’s head. Desperate and alone, Julian shows up on Danny’s doorstep. He’s the only friend he has and he needs his help. Danny must now leave his little life of normalcy and comfort to help a man he barely knows. He must help Julian kill another human being.
So, it’s a pretty interesting premise. A man who has lived a life of excitement but is totally alone gets crammed together with a guy who has no excitement but a wife who loves him and what most would consider a normal life. The movie plays this out pretty well. Pierce Brosnan is great as Julian. He walks a very fine line of complete arrogant asshole and vulnerable man who’s alone.
Here’s my favorite screen shot. Julian botches a job, passes out and when he wakes up he’s face first in donkey shit. I just like the idea of suave and sexy James Bond waking up in a pile of shit!!!
I don’t like Greg Kinnear. I never have. He always gets outdone by whomever he’s doing a scene with. Here it is no different. But he does an adequate job as the everyman.
I really don’t have a lot to say about this film. It’s OK. Not my favorite movie, but it was entertaining nonetheless. The biggest downfall was that it was advertised as a comedy. It’s a pretty dark movie with a lot of scenes that have no humor at all. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just not what I think people expected from this film.
Onto the DVD:
There are deleted scenes. Nothing to write home about. I’m actually glad most of them were taken out of the film.
There is a making of. It does not really tell how the film was made. It’s more of a “here is the director” and “here are the actors” segment. Not very exciting.
Finally, there are two commentaries. The first is with the writer/director (Richard Shepherd). This is kind of an informative commentary. A lot of straightforward and unwitty information about the film.
The other commentary has Shepherd, Brosnan and Kinnear. This might as well be called the “Let’s Blow Each Other Commentary”. Cuz that’s what they do on this commentary. It’s a lot of “We’ve made a great film.” “You were so great in this scene.” “No, you were.” It became so nauseating that I eventually had to shut it off.
FINAL ANALYSIS!
This is a good film. I’m glad I rented it. It’s entertaining and visually nice to look at and Pierce is great in the role of Julian. If you have a free night to kill I would recommend this as a solid rental.
RENT THIS MOVIE!!!
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