The Matador (DVD, 2006, Full Frame Version)

Pierce Brosnan shows his acting skills in this movie of a hit man ready to leave the business. We loved him as James Bond but we see another side of the actor as a shady loner looking for friendship. He finds that friend in the unlikely character of Greg Kinnear who has fallen on hard times. The two somehow learn from one another, different as they are.
It is good to see more of Pierce and in such an opposite role. Hopefully he will continue to find acting parts for us former Bond fans.
The Matador drew good connections, took us inside the hitman world and around the world in his travels and surprised us in the end. Entertaining!

LOVED IT! Fantastic twists of plot, banter back & forth, music soundtrack, cinematography, colors, sets, and the three main actors are TERRIFIC - as usual! QUIRKY but FASCINATING and ORIGINAL!!! Director may be moving to Miami sooner than he thinks once people catch on to this breath of fresh air.

Pierce Brosnan gives one of his finest performances in The Matador, a low-key buddy comedy with an agreeably sinister twist. Light-years from his former James Bond image, Brosnan is unshaven, unnerved and unpredictable as freelance assassin Julian Noble, who encounters desperate businessman Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear) in the bar of a modern Mexico City hotel. Danny is intrigued when Julian reveals that he's a "facilitator of fatalities," and his wife "Bean" (Hope Davis) is equally fascinated when Julian shows up unexpectedly, six months later, at Danny's home in Denver. Having lost his touch as a reliable hit-man, Julian needs Danny's help with "one last job," but the logistics of Julian's lethal profession (involving an employer played by Philip Baker Hall) are secondary to writer-director Richard Shepard's offbeat, slightly uneven character study, which gives Kinnear and Brosnan a memorable opportunity to riff on their established screen personas. In making Julian a likable yet tormented drifter who's made a habit of "running from any emotion," Brosnan creates an edgy yet sympathetic character as mysterious as he is fun to be around; if you're going to befriend a hired killer, you could do far worse than a guy like Julian. As Brosnan plays him, he's worthy of a sequel, but The Matador is the kind of entertainingly quirky movie that's a hard act to follow.

This movie is good fun if you don't take it too serious. It's not a thinking man's movie, nor is it anything original or groundbreaking. The simple premise is that a hitman suffering from anxiety attacks meets a regular-guy businessman in Mexico City, and they realize they can help each other out.

I enjoy the chemistry between Brosnan and Kinnear, and I would be tempted to say that this movie is quite often (much like the Sean Connery Bond films) carried by the charisma of the actors, and the snappy dialogue they've been given, more than an innovative, or even overly interesting, plot.

It's definitely a lot of fun, though. It might be a little 'adult' for the kiddies at times, so keep that in mind. Either way, I would definitely recommend the film.

All of Pierce Brosnan's fans will see a side to his acting abilities very different to the suave debonair Englishman we all know and love.
In this parody of a "hitman thriller" you will see a washed-up hitman whinning to a total stranger about his bumbling antics as a hitman.
His tactics make a believer of the stranger and from there we follow them through an unlikely frienship that last for years.
The only scene that merits any recognition is the one where Brosnon is seen parading through the lobby of a swank Mexican Hotel on his way to the swimming pool in his "speedos". From here he jumps into the pool with a beer can in hand, and comes face-to-face with a shark.
Is it a rule of Hollywood that popular Actors must demean their selves on screen for the sake of making a "BUCK"?

I bought it because I thought it looked good .I personally think that it is not as good as it looked .

pierce brosnan excels at two things look incredibly handsome and act sexy ...i get that he was trying to change his image but all he did was almost ruin his career