Brosnan goes from sexiest man to sleaziest
In 2001, Pierce Brosnan was voted Sexiest Man Alive by
”
People
”
Magazine. He made the 50 Most Beautiful People list two years in
the ’90s. He is best known for playing a debonair man in the James
Bond series and movies such as
”
The Thomas Crowne Affair.
”
He’s got the Irish or British accent going for him
– and I have a weakness for Irish men since I studied there in
college. He’s tall with dark wavy hair and piercing blue eyes. What
is there not to like?
Brosnan goes from sexiest man to sleaziest
In 2001, Pierce Brosnan was voted Sexiest Man Alive by “People” Magazine. He made the 50 Most Beautiful People list two years in the ’90s. He is best known for playing a debonair man in the James Bond series and movies such as “The Thomas Crowne Affair.” He’s got the Irish or British accent going for him – and I have a weakness for Irish men since I studied there in college. He’s tall with dark wavy hair and piercing blue eyes. What is there not to like?
So when I watched “The Matador,” a 2005 movie starring Brosnan and Greg Kinnear, I knew it took an artist to transform the dashingly handsome Irish/British actor into a lecherous, washed up hit man in the movie. Director/Writer Richard Shepard did an amazing job of creating Julian Noble (Brosnan.) Julian Noble, an assassin who travels the world on the job, and has plenty of time on the side to hook up with prostitutes and drink wherever he happens to be. Shepard may have used his skills when directing the pilot episode of “Ugly Betty,” a series based about über-dork Betty Suarez (America Ferriera) who gets a job in the glam world of fashion magazines. While America is curvaceous, she is by no stretch of the imagination ugly. Neither is Brosnan.
Brosnan’s Noble has a scruffy face, and though not overweight he carries himself as a man with a pot belly would, and he wears clothes that look as though they are made of polyester. The marquee scene that shows off just how awful Brosnan looks is when he strolls through a hotel lobby in Mexico City with just black boots and a pair of black briefs on. It could be that Brosnan has just started aging horribly since he took the sexiest man alive title six years ago, but my guess is that most of the credit goes to the makeup department and costume designers on the set.
The movie centers around a chance meeting between Noble and an equally-washed up businessman, Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear). Wright has lost a son, lost a job and fears if he doesn’t make a business plan work on his trip to Mexico City, he will also lose his wife Carolyn (Hope Davis.) Just the morning before he left, his kitchen ceiling caved in when a tree crashed into the house. Noble is in town for a hit – he generally takes out corporate types, he says. Noble runs into Wright at the bar, after “hours of fornicating and drinking,” he says. Despite the sex, he seems starved for attention and offers to buy Wright a drink.
Kinnear’s Wright is as far right from Noble as one can get. He is clean shaven, with a typical dad mustache, and he wears glasses. He isn’t the bogus, single-minded salesman he plays in “Little Miss Sunshine,” but earnest and willing to open up about his hardships.
But Noble quickly offends him and then offends him again, and Wright leaves the bar. The next day, Wright’s business trip is extended and Noble invites him to a bullfighting trip as an apology for his rude behavior. Wright feels sorry for the bull, but Noble explains that when the bullfighter is good it takes just one strike of the sword to down the bull. He knows from experience. Noble soon reveals what he does for a living, and though Wright at first laughs it off, he soon comes to believe him.
The question we have throughout most of the movie is whether Noble helps Wright get the account by assassinate his business opponents – and it’s not answered until the very end of the movie.
Wright returns home to Colorado and his wife, while Noble is sent off on another round of trips. But Noble is no longer the same. He can’t hold it together when he needs to pull the trigger and he seeks out Wright to help him.
“The Matador” has the suspense of most dark comedies, but in this film the worst that can be expected never comes to fruition. It has its dark moments, including a two-second-flash of a sex club, but there is not blood or guts throughout. It has its laughs, including a funny exchange between Noble and young boy at a park early on, but it definitely isn’t a movie for everyone. Still underneath the assassin motif, the movie really is more of a friendship film. Noble and Wright, when they are both down and out, find each other and their lives are better for it.
