Boston Common Theater, Boston, MA

***1/2 / ****

By Scott Muoio

I have always maintained that the key to an entertaining movie is having entertaining characters. Make them different, make them funny, and make them likable and plot be damned, an audience will walk out with a smile on their face. Last night I watched The Matador, a movie about a broke down hit man trying to get over his mid-life crisis. Played exquisitely by Pierce Brosnan, his Julian Noble was more entertaining than any character I have seen in a long while, seducing ladies, laughing hard with mouth wide open, passing out from inebriation in donkey feces, and strolling through a hotel lobby in nothing save black bikini briefs, dark boots, and some of the skinniest yet flabbiest legs I can ever recall seeing on the silver screen. And the best part? The ladies, I imagine, would still want to do him. Now that is what I call extraordinary acting!

It’s fun to watch actors playing with their characters, poking fun at their own on and off-screen personas, and generally having a good time with their character’s personality quirks. And Brosnan does just that. Julian is a man of many quirks, always quick with a raunchy one-liner, a mustache that is as killer as his employment, and a fashion sense that is as hilarious as it is appropriate. He drinks hard then hits the pavement even harder, hardly what one might think of as James Bondish. His womanzing materializes not because he is irresistible to the fairer sex, but because he’s bored and doesn’t want to pass the time alone. In every way, he’s the type of guy who you meet once and then talk about for the rest of your life. And one character, hilariously, ends up doing just that.

Enter Danny, played expressively and perfectly by the always reliable Greg Kinnear. Danny is struggling to make ends meet, worried that he is letting down his wife (played by Hope Davis), and desperately trying to make a sell to prospects in Mexico City. It is south of the border where the paths of Danny and Julian cross, and their respective needs for stability and adventure, respectively, spur an unlikely courtship, err, friendship. Together, the mismatched pair make the old Jerry Maguire line, “you complete me,” mean something, and not sappily but rather, hilariously. They drink at the cantinas, visit a bullfight, and then reunite in the only way that makes sense. It’s like Romeo and Juliet minus the quarreling families and always depressing hemlock.

Rather than go on giving away the plot, which itself is pretty solid with a bit of surprise here and there, I’d like to note that The Matador is good, clean adult fun. Sure, it has more than its fair share of raunch courtesy of Mr. Noble (“I look like a Bangkok hooker on a Sunday morning after the navy’s left town”), but that is also part of its charm. While the movie’s third act starts out slow, it barrels to a very satisfying conclusion where everyone gets just what they deserve, especially the audience. The Matador may not get a lot of publicity, but it is a film well worth the price of admission.

My suggestion? Come for the Pierce Brosnan, stay for the excellent and entertaining film courtesy of writer/director Richard Shepard.

P.S. – I still don’t like Hope Davis as an actress. Never have, probably never will.