Cool poster. Didn’t help the film…
For all the hubbub about pretty sparkling vampires, superheroes, serial killers and zombie hordes, there just might be more films made about the humble hitman than you would ever think.
The Matador is another, and it’s a good one.
The hitman in question is Julian (Pierce Brosnan), a smooth operator who works on contract and never misses a target, leading to his feelings of invincibility and an attitude that is pure bravado. Julian thinks not of what he can do for others, but what others can do for – and to – him. He is a user unafraid of offending anyone, and largely unconcerned of what others think of him. After all he can kill them if he wants!
But after a lifetime of continuing the same cycle: prep, kill, celebrate, fornicate, repeat without any real human contact or a place to call home Julian has begun to feel that his own lacks meaning. He wants human contact that doesn’t end with a stain of some kind (Sorry!).
Julian feels that he has found that when he meets Danny (Greg Kinnear). Danny is a hard working salesman of some kind in Mexico for a pitch meeting that he desperately needs to close with a big account. While the meeting went well he remains in Mexico until he is given a yea or nay in case he needs to wrap up some loose ends. Danny meets Julian after the initial warmth of a job well done has tempered somewhat, and they share a spirited but awkward and ultimately failed conversation at the bar when the talk turns to Danny’s dead little boy and Julian simply has no way of empathising.
A rocky start.
Julian bumps into Danny the next day, apologising profusely and pleading with him to hang out and let Julian make up for it. Off to the bullfights they go! After some time Danny realises that his one-way conversation has told him nothing about Julian himself, after some probing Julian reluctantly opens up to Danny and informs him that he is in fact A HITMAN!!!
Oh I mentioned that above didn’t I? Let’s just move on…
Danny is a middle class everyman and is understandably blown away – so to speak – by the news he has been chillaxing with a real life hitman. He questions Julian about the various aspects of the ‘game’ until Julian offers to take him on a dry run. This goes so well that Julian asks an aghast Danny to ride co-pilot with him on a real job.
6 months later…
Julian is still on the job, but is jaded, noticeably slower, and slipping… his facilitator tells him to life his game or he will be ‘retired’.
Julian concocts a plan to extricate himself from his situation, but it is one that requires Danny’s involvement…
The Matador has more in common with In Bruges than merely being about hitmen. In both films the charm of the film is the interplay between the two leads and the fact that again in both films any thought of PC compromise is thrown out the window. Julian is a grade A wanker and never pretends he is anything but, aside from his job he knows only alcohol, debauchery and fornication, and he tells Danny (and later his wife Bean) of the same in no uncertain terms. This has been his life for so long now that he simply knows of no other way and can’t sugar coat his conversations. (His first reaction to a story about Danny’s son’s death is to start telling a joke.)
This means that wide eyed Danny’s reactions to Julian are never less than believable, while he doesn’t shrink from the fact that Julian is a hitman he is nevertheless genuinely scared – and perhaps a little jazzed – at what hanging around Julian might entail.
The story is quite simple but I have deliberately left any mention of plot and plot twist out of this review, but I might add that even though The Matador is more about how Danny and Julian interact than what they actually do, the story is worth sticking around for.
Final Rating – 7.5 / 10. At a pinch I might recommend In Bruges over The Matador, but you can’t go wrong with either.
