The Matador

A matador, we are told, has a strict code of honour. To kill the bull with a swift, lethal stroke is best, rather than progressively wounding it with ill-aimed jabs. An experienced matador drives his sword into the bull's neck with one exquisite movement of the arm, minimizing pain (and the crowd's moral discomfort).

The opening scene of The Matador sets the tone as light comedy when a tree, struck in a thunderstorm, falls into a house, interrupting a young couple having sex in the kitchen. Dusting themselves off, he turns to her and enquires, "Are you still horny?"

Pierce Brosnan is a hard working professional assassin, by the name of Julian Noble. We catch up with him on his birthday, except there is no one celebrating it with him. His is a hectic, demanding schedule, which is starting to take a toll. His life is solitary. He has no colleagues, only a contact, who reaches him through newspaper advertisements to pass on details of the next assignment. Julian is a facilitator. He facilitates death. And the only other people in his life, outside the targets, are whores in various exotic locations.

Almost at the point of exhaustion and winding down over several margaritas, he manages to make a friendship of sorts with Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear), a businessman, who somehow tolerates Julian's inadequate people skills. Some time later, when Julian is on the run, he turns to Danny for help.

The Matador veers uneasily between comedy and psychological drama, with lightweight thrills thrown in. At a bullfight, Danny challenges Julian to show him what he means when he says he is a hitman, and we are on the edge of our seats, waiting to see if he is going to go through with a killing. At other times, Julian just about manages to play down his calling as "one hell of a tall story" to his newly found, ingenuous and unlikely pal-in-times-of-need.

There are great visual scenes - Brosnan striding confidently through the hotel lobby in his underpants, or the colourful bullfighting footage - and the script just about manages to pull off what is an unlikely tale. When Julian starts to break down and lose his cool, we realise that, although Brosnan has come a long way since his pre-James Bond days, the water is almost over his head if he attempts deep psychological character portrayals.

We are kept in suspense about Julian's true sexuality and the identity of some of the targets, but when the film reaches its more introspective moments, with the macho assassin suffering blackouts, we have to adjust to a change of pace. Julian describes himself as looking "like a Bangkok hooker on a Sunday morning the night after the navy left town," but the humour, on the whole, is aimed at pathos rather than knockabout, and, as hitmen go, this one is quite a nice guy.

The Matador is entertaining, if superficial. As an actor, Brosnan shows promise without quite reaching the heights to which a professional of his experience might aspire. While offering little more than light consumer fare, you will not feel pain as your hand slides into your wallet for the price of admission, or discomfort as you give up an hour and a half of precious time.