Let me begin by chiming in with virtually every other review I've read regarding Pierce Brosnan's performance in this film. It is an absolute delight to behold and without a doubt the best thing Brosnan's ever done. I would never have thought him capable of it. Congratulations Pierce!

Though never exactly a “wooden” film actor in the Keanu Reeves sense, Brosnan's onscreen persona has often come across as somewhat joyless, distant and opaque. A perfect James Bond type, he has tended to pose through his roles - a kind of stiff, cardboard cut-out version of sophisticated manly perfection - a debonair British Ken doll of sorts.

Not so in The Matador. In creating the role of Julian Noble - the alcoholic, sexaholic, underworld hitman with a Eurotrash fashion sense, Brosnan purposely lets himself slip – physically, emotionally and even sexually. Brilliantly playing off his well-known past screen image, Brosnan's Julian Noble cuts a figure whose inspirations are a mixed cocktail of such varied personalities as Tom Selleck, Billy Bob Thornton, Sir Ian McKellan, as well as Dan Ackroyd and Steve Martin's “two wild and crazy guys” from SNL . Then toss in a healthy dose of over-the-hill porn star/sleeze-meister Ron Jeremy and—voila!—you have Julian.

In this dark comedy, Julian Noble (Brosnan) is a hit man - in his own words "a facilitator of fatalities" – a kind of burned-out version of an Ian Fleming type assassin. He's in Mexico City on an underworld assignment. Unfortunately for Julian, his debauched lifestyle has caught up with him-- the business of murder has left him an empty shell of a man.

Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear) is also in Mexico City on business, of the common, struggling traveling salesman/family-man kind. Danny lives in Denver with his loving wife Bean (Hope Davis), Danny finds himself in Mexico City making an important pitch for a business opportunity whose outcome could be the difference between Danny solving all his financial problems or falling even deeper into debt and insecurity.

One night, at the hotel bar, these two men meet. As the films press release says, “Before long, they find themselves having an extremely unique Mexico City experience, one that will change them both forever. Julian the hit man, and Danny the ordinary American businessman find that while they have nothing in common, they both need each other in ways they never knew they would.”

Page 1 / 2 / 3 - Next