Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
A fast-paced edgy film about a hitman (Brosnan) who suddenly finds himself as the mark and the salesman (Kinnear) he befriends in a Mexican bar and recruits to help him.System Requirements:Running Time: 97 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: R UPC: 796019791595 Manufacturer No: 79159

Amazon.com:
Pierce Brosnan gives one of his finest performances in The Matador, a low-key buddy comedy with an agreeably sinister twist. Light-years from his former James Bond image, Brosnan is unshaven, unnerved and unpredictable as freelance assassin Julian Noble, who encounters desperate businessman Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear) in the bar of a modern Mexico City hotel. Danny is intrigued when Julian reveals that he's a "facilitator of fatalities," and his wife "Bean" (Hope Davis) is equally fascinated when Julian shows up unexpectedly, six months later, at Danny's home in Denver. Having lost his touch as a reliable hit-man, Julian needs Danny's help with "one last job," but the logistics of Julian's lethal profession (involving an employer played by Philip Baker Hall) are secondary to writer-director Richard Shepard's offbeat, slightly uneven character study, which gives Kinnear and Brosnan a memorable opportunity to riff on their established screen personas. In making Julian a likable yet tormented drifter who's made a habit of "running from any emotion," Brosnan creates an edgy yet sympathetic character as mysterious as he is fun to be around; if you're going to befriend a hired killer, you could do far worse than a guy like Julian. As Brosnan plays him, he's worthy of a sequel, but The Matador is the kind of entertainingly quirky movie that's a hard act to follow. --Jeff Shannon

Rating : - A facilitator of fatalities meets a nice guy in a fine, funny and potty-mouthed black comedy
Even assassins can have a crisis of conscience, and this smart black comedy of rifle shots and mercenary murder gives us the ten-step program. What makes The Matador interesting is that the movie isn't about rehabilitation, but friendship.

Julian Noble (Pierce Brosnan) is an assassin, or as he prefers to put it, "I facilitate fatalities." Unfortunately for Noble, he's seen better days, physically and professionally. Anxiety attacks sometimes spoil his aim. Age and the appearance of being a ticking time bomb leave him with no friends, no home and only sex and booze as consolation. Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear), on the other hand, even though he's lost his job, has a solid, mutually-loving relationship with his wife, the childhood sweetheart he calls Bean (Hope Davis). Danny is a decent, honorable good guy. The two are going to meet in Mexico City in a sleek hotel bar. Danny has just made a pitch for a desperately needed business contract. Julian, with a bullet from a high-powered rifle, has just splattered the head of a woman his handler, Mr. Randy (Philip Baker Hall), assigned him to take out. Noble is so inappropriately smart-mouth Danny nearly walks away, but he is so needy that he gets Danny to go with him to a bullfight. And there, Julian sort of surprises himself by telling Danny he's an assass...facilitator of fatalities. In a great and funny set piece, Julian shows him just how it can be done by picking someone at random who happens to have body guards. Then he asks Danny for help. Danny flees back home.

Months later, Danny and Bean in their Denver home hear a knock on their door late at night. It's Julian. He's screwed up once too often. The guys who hire him are after him. He confesses Danny is his only friend. Bean is fascinated. Danny is wary...but Danny is a good guy. After a night of getting-to-know-you-better, the next morning Danny and Julian are off to Phoenix for Julian's last assignment. Will they stay friends? Who knows? But as Julian tells Danny, "Just consider me the best cocktail party story you ever met."

The movie needs to be seen to appreciate the skillful, straight-faced approach to murder this comedy provides. There are no particular moral condemnations of Julian, just a kind of concerned response by Danny and Bean to his falling-apart neediness. The black comedy arises from the situation, but the fascination arises from the friendship that develops between these two men, the amoral Julian prone to anxiety attacks and the decent Danny. Pierce Brosnan gives one of the best performances of his career. If you weren't as decent as Danny, you'd never want Brosnan's Julian anywhere near you. He's no smooth James Bond here, just an inappropriately wisecracking assassin who appreciates sex in all its fine variety. Greg Kinnear has the tough job of balancing Danny's niceness with Brosnan's showy turn. He does it. It's Kinnear who makes The Matador such a weird and fine buddy movie.

Brosnan, for me, usually in his hero roles comes across as smug. As Julian Noble, Brosnan let's his usual veneer of charm and competence develop cracks. Brosnan knows what he's doing. I think he was just about as excellent in Evelyn and The Tailor of Panama. To see him in sympathetic lead hero mode before the heroic smugness set in, watch him in the TV movie Murder 101. Although Philip Baker Hall has a small role that could have been played by any competent actor, he makes a nice impression because we've liked him so much in other movies. To see just how extraordinary he was as an actor, check out his tour de force performance as Richard Nixon in Robert Altman's one-actor movie, Secret Honor - Criterion Collection. Hall looks nothing like Nixon, but there is absolutely no doubt who the character is, deep in the scotch and the self-pity, that we're watching. One word of warning for the family trade: The Matador has some of the funniest, most vivid and most obscene lines of dialogue I've heard in a long time.