Matador, The

Thriller

Pierce Brosnan	Julian Noble
Arlin Miller	Radio DJ
Azucena Medina	Young Denver Fling
Jonah Meyerson
Wiveca Bonerais
Greg Kinnear	Danny Wright
Hope Davis	Carolyn Wright
Adam Scott	Phil Garrison
Portia Dawson	Genevive
Roberto Sosa	Skinny Mexican Man
Maureen Muldoon
Philip Baker Hall
Dylan Baker

Director	Richard Shepard
Producer	Pierce Brosnan; Beau St. Clair
Writer	Richard Shepard

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