The Matador (2005)

Back in 2005 Pierce Brosnan was still figuring out where his acting career was going post James Bond. This was his third film after his last Bond, Die Another Day in 2002 and this is the best I’ve seen him, arguably ever. I always thought Brosnan was a great Bond (at the risk of causing a ruckus) but in The Matador we begin to see his comedic side which has come to the forefront more and more as his career as gone on. He plays Julian Noble, a hit man who’s coming to the end of his career due to a series of breakdowns on recent jobs. Julian meets Danny (Greg Kinnear) in Mexico, at a hotel bar, and after initially insulting Danny after drunkenly mocking the death of his son, the two become, somewhat oddly, friends. The film is the blackest of comedies, after Danny is told by Julian what he does for a living, Julian shows him (in a fantastic sequence during a bullfight) how he would go about dispatching a target. Danny is a struggling salesman, worried that his wife will leave him if there are a couple more failed jobs, whilst Julian is on his own depressing spiral. The pair's problems mix to make for a wonderfully strange relationship, each needing the other for different reasons as the film progresses. You care about both of them, and laugh throughout at some terrific script writing. It’s a bit of an undiscovered gem, it was fairly well received on release but has since disappeared from the public domain somewhat, but it’s well worth tracking down, and Brosnan is truly excellent. 7.7/10