Thursday 5 September 2013

The Matador (2005 Richard Shepard & scr)

Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Hope Davis, Philip Baker Hall.

Amoral assassin (is there another kind? Good question sparks possible story idea) befriends honest regular guy architect in Mexico City; their paths cross again six months later.


It's a nice visual joke that six months on, Greg's copied the moustache.

Brosnan also co-produced and clearly relished bad boy character; Kinnear perhaps became typecast as the nice guy. Davis has more fun as straight wife who relishes meeting assassin ("did you bring your gun"?)

Music by Rolfe Kent (who works with Jason Reitman, and scored Dexter); photographed by David Tattersall.

Film is diverting and enjoyable enough, like I imagine a cherry and almond cake would be. It didn't really do it for Shepard, who's latterly been doing TV (e.g. episodes of Girls), though he has a promising new film coming out which he's again written, with Jude Law and Richard E Grant, Don Hemingway.

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