The Matador

Went to the moovies last night to the new Pierce Brosnan film the Matador. Hmmm. Then this morning i learnt that it was in fact meant to have some homosexual scenes that were cut - i have no idea where they would have fitted into the film, or why they would have needed to be there. The whole thing was a bit of a waste of time. Here is my review.

The Matador

The film opens with the sight of Pierce Brosnan stealing a hookers nail varnish to paint his toe nails. It then lurches into a slightly clichéd odd couple movie, with misanthropic hit-man Brosnan striking up a friendship with dorky and ineffective businessman Greg Kinnear in a hotel bar in Mexico City. They separate, and then, years later get back together when Brosnan screws up and comes to Kinnear for assistance with one final job.

There are moments of humor in the film, but they do not outweigh the basically very silly premise of the entire enterprise. Brosnan’s character is amusing, and he plays it with a certain panache, but it is lacking in any real credibility. Kinnear and his wife (Hope Davis) are ciphers of a middle class wannabe cosmopolitan couple, who have the ghost of a dead child hanging over them. Why it was necessary for them to have lost a child is never really explained: could be some claptrap about showing that they are all too aware of the fragility of life, but there is no emotional connection made with hitman Brosnan’s victims to justify that. Also, why we need to watch them humping constantly I cannot understand. Is it simply meant to contrast the aggressive shagging that Brosnan indulges in?

There were elements of the film that were reminiscent of a Jim Thompson novel – a hard edged pot boiler about bad people doing bad things. This was kind of fused with a more light hearted Elmore Leonard approach – but without any real meshing of the two halves together, so the whole comes out as somewhat slipshod. On top of this, since the cast was so small, and much of the film was taken up with conversations between them, it had an unjustifiable theatrical quality to it at parts. Especially when Brosnan shows up at the family home in the middle of the night, and the three of them (Kinnear, Davis, and Brosnan) talk, drink whiskey, and dance. Basically a half-assed version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf.

The film had a style that was somewhat entertaining, the screen was always very colorful and the shots of the various cities that the action happens in are handled in a fun way. Otherwise, the film lacked the action and was too secretive to be an action rumpus. At the same time, the characters were disinteresting and verging on cliché, so there was no connection there. On top of this, the one entertaining character was constantly restrained by the script and it is hard to warm to a only partially formed burned out hitman.

This film is not one for the family, and not one for boys or girls in search of fun. It aspires to be something for the Sundance/Cannes artsy audience, but doesn’t carry it off. I would wait for it to appear on TV.