The Matador
Studio: The Weinstein Company
Rated: R
Website: http://www.matadorthemovie.com/
Release Date: 2006-01-27
Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Hope Davis, Adam Scott, Philip Baker Hall
Director: Richard Shepard
Screenwriter: Richard Shepard
Music Score: Rolfe Kent
WorkNameSort: Matador, The
Our Rating: 1.50

Every few years, Pierce Brosnan bankrolls himself an intended vanity project that instead lays bare his inability to act. The latest, mystifyingly well-received example is The Matador, an unpleasant and unfunny comedy (or is it a frivolous drama?) about a gone-to-seed hit man who befriends a genial salesman (Greg Kinnear) while on assignment south of the border. Brosnan’s Julian Noble is a polymorphously perverse boor of the sort that the movies keep insisting is lovable – a scam that might be easier to pull if the script endowed him with one honestly amusing one-liner. The wannabe Crystal/De Niro relationship that he and Kinnear’s Danny Wright develop is wholly unbelievable, and doubly so when the latter’s wife (Hope Davis) is factored in. As for Brosnan’s vaunted fearlessness in letting his physique slide: He’s merely become less diligent about shooting around the flab he was already sporting by his second Bond picture. </{

Every few years, Pierce Brosnan bankrolls himself an intended vanity project that instead lays bare his inability to act. The latest, mystifyingly well-received example is The Matador, an unpleasant and unfunny comedy (or is it a frivolous drama?) about a gone-to-seed hit man who befriends a genial salesman (Greg Kinnear) while on assignment south of the border. Brosnan’s Julian Noble is a polymorphously perverse boor of the sort that the movies keep insisting is lovable – a scam that might be easier to pull if the script endowed him with one honestly amusing one-liner. The wannabe Crystal/De Niro relationship that he and Kinnear’s Danny Wright develop is wholly unbelievable, and doubly so when the latter’s wife (Hope Davis) is factored in. As for Brosnan’s vaunted fearlessness in letting his physique slide: He’s merely become less diligent about shooting around the flab he was already sporting by his second Bond picture.

This article appears in Jan 25-31, 2006.