The Matador

2 out of 7

Pierce Bronson kills off his James Bond persona in The Matador (2005), as he tries to show the actual consequences of just such an espionage lifestyle. Unfortunately, the film isn’t about James Bond, a character which millions care about and has traversed at least 2 generations, but about a character named Julian Noble (his last name undoubtedly a pun meant to illicit a favorable response from the viewer) and since this movie isn’t about James Bond, it suffers from “why should I care” syndrome.

The Matador is about a hapless salesman, Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear) and a professional hitman (Bronson), who get entangled in an odd friendship while on business in Mexico City. Noble shows Wright the ropes of killing a man and Wright shows Noble just what is lacking in his life (assumably, though never directly stated, the love of a good woman). After their odd encounter, the film follows Noble as his skills begin to wane due to the psychological pressure of the job. No amount of smoking, drinking and carousing with women will make Noble the hitman he once was and soon he is “out” and running for his life. After a late-night intrusion on Wright and his wife “Bean” (Hope Davis), Wright must travel from Denver to Phoenix to help Noble in one last hit to clear his name. The hit goes well enough and Noble is able to leave Wright free of any danger. Sadly, this poorly composed paragraph does the film justice.

The film suffers, undoubtedly, from some pacing issues. It spends too much time watching Noble either succeed or fail at his job (and all the drunken ribaldry that goes with it) and not enough time creating a single, real emotional attachment to his character. Wright, on the other hand, is a little more accessible (certainly a commentary on the acting abilities of Bronson versus Kinnear), but the film isn’t about him (it is, after all, titled The Matador). Similarly, the actual conflict (Noble’s need to clear his name and save his life) isn’t revealed until 30 minutes left in the film and is then resolved with 10 minutes left in the film, thus, the entirety of the plot (as plots are defined by conflict and resolution) takes all of 20 minutes and, considering that the rest of the time does little for character development, the whole piece feels like a waste.

The only interesting point of the whole film is that it tries to flesh out exactly what would happen to a person whose life is centered on death and deceit. Of course, though, if one needs a film to understand that, one might find oneself in a bad place personally. Thus, the whole film can be chalked up to an okay story told poorly.