2008 Woodie Awards
At the movies . . .
The Matador: When Mr. Noble finally meets Mr. Right
Christopher Wood
Issue date: 3/9/06 Section: Arts & Entertainment
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With The Matador, Pierce Brosnan has traded in his tuxedo and polished one-liners for colorful nightclub shirts and crass sex jokes. As Julian Noble he trots the globe killing bad guys while making ladies swoon, but the similarities with his former 007 role end there.
He lusts after pubescent Catholic schoolgirls and seeks the company of prostitutes wherever his work takes him. And his job as an international assassin has recently begun to wear on him. The shaken, not stirred martinis have taken their toll on this jittery lush with his druggy gaze and bloodshot eyes. Gray hairs poke out of his mustache and spiky hair. This middle-aged hit man has lost his nerve. Panic attacks cloud his vision before he can make the kill.
Enter the mild-mannered salesman Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear) to set Noble's wayward soul straight. We've seen this kind of story before. Hollywood has found past success in the "lovable criminal" subgenre with movies like "True Lies" (1994), "Analyze This" (1999), and "The Whole Nine Yards" (2000), the latter zany comedies each spawning sequels.
In each the shifty crime world invades stable suburbia, and the lawless killer eventually finds middle-class life oddly alluring. Each person in the friendship gets what he or she most needs: the hedonistic, living-on-the-edge criminal reforms after the simple values of moderate America reveal his misspent existence to him. If the authorities don't catch up with him, his own conscience will.
Simultaneously, the accommodating if inept yuppies experience a rush of exhilaration and a taste of danger that briefly frees them from the humdrum existence of the spiritless business world.
"The Matador" knows its story treads familiar ground. We see the film's good-humored self-consciousness in the moment when a broken Julian screams out to Danny, "Look at me! I'm a parody!"
In "The Matador," Noble and Wright swap identities for a short while. After his memorable encounter with Julian in Mexico, Danny appropriates the killer's mustache and asserts himself more in his personal life, especially with his wife Bean (Hope Davis,) during their short-lived sexual escapades.
He lusts after pubescent Catholic schoolgirls and seeks the company of prostitutes wherever his work takes him. And his job as an international assassin has recently begun to wear on him. The shaken, not stirred martinis have taken their toll on this jittery lush with his druggy gaze and bloodshot eyes. Gray hairs poke out of his mustache and spiky hair. This middle-aged hit man has lost his nerve. Panic attacks cloud his vision before he can make the kill.
Enter the mild-mannered salesman Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear) to set Noble's wayward soul straight. We've seen this kind of story before. Hollywood has found past success in the "lovable criminal" subgenre with movies like "True Lies" (1994), "Analyze This" (1999), and "The Whole Nine Yards" (2000), the latter zany comedies each spawning sequels.
In each the shifty crime world invades stable suburbia, and the lawless killer eventually finds middle-class life oddly alluring. Each person in the friendship gets what he or she most needs: the hedonistic, living-on-the-edge criminal reforms after the simple values of moderate America reveal his misspent existence to him. If the authorities don't catch up with him, his own conscience will.
Simultaneously, the accommodating if inept yuppies experience a rush of exhilaration and a taste of danger that briefly frees them from the humdrum existence of the spiritless business world.
"The Matador" knows its story treads familiar ground. We see the film's good-humored self-consciousness in the moment when a broken Julian screams out to Danny, "Look at me! I'm a parody!"
In "The Matador," Noble and Wright swap identities for a short while. After his memorable encounter with Julian in Mexico, Danny appropriates the killer's mustache and asserts himself more in his personal life, especially with his wife Bean (Hope Davis,) during their short-lived sexual escapades.