Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
The life of Danny Wright, a salesman forever on the road, veers into dangerous and surreal territory when he wanders into a Mexican bar and meets a mysterious stranger, Julian, who's very likely a hit man. Their meeting sets off a chain of events that will change their lives forever, as Wright is suddenly thrust into a far-from-mundane existence that he takes to surprisingly well … once he gets acclimated to it.
The Matador succeeds largely on the strength of its two leads — Pierce Brosnan delivers a genuinely surprising, career-best comedic-dramatic performance as the seedy, self-loathing hitman Julian, and Greg Kinnear matches him well as the everyman foil. The odd-couple dynamic carries the film through its better moments. The plot itself is a moderately clever character study dressed in thriller clothing, but it never fully commits to either genre and meanders in its second half. The ending feels deflated and underwritten, failing to pay off the emotional and narrative threads satisfactorily. Cinematography is workmanlike, offering little visual distinction despite the colorful Mexico City backdrop. Novelty is moderate — the pairing of a despondent assassin with an optimistic salesman is an appealing hook but not a wholly fresh one, though Brosnan's willingness to subvert his Bond image gives it some distinctiveness.