Pierce Brosnan’s live-wire character gives ‘The Matador’ a cynical lift

In theaters

THE MATADOR, written and directed by Richard Shepard, 97 minutes, rated R.

Richard Shepard’s “The Matador” stars Pierce Brosnan as Julian Noble, a longtime international assassin who at first seems absolutely confident in his job, at ease with himself and fine with the deadly decisions he has made in life.

Initially, everything about Julian suggests a man at the zenith of his career. Without a hitch, he blows up cars and blows away his targets; he flirts shamelessly and successfully with women young enough to be his daughter; he darts briskly around the globe, touching down just long enough to do his dirty work before escaping on a plane for the next job in the next city with the new culture.

And then, without warning, there’s a shift.

In Mexico City, where he has just arrived for another job, Julian starts to look a trace haggard. He isn’t himself. His face is drawn, the bags beneath his eyes are pronounced. He starts to look almost fragile and there are the occasional complaints of exhaustion. Before long, he’s a wreck, dipping so deeply into the business end of a tequila bottle, you half expect him to be dewormed by the end of the movie.

While in Mexico, Julian meets Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear), who is in town for business – the legitimate sort. For dim, awkward Danny, who could be sold on the idea that red tide actually is red, his future rests on the success of this trip. If he fails to win a major contract, it could be personally and professionally disastrous to him.

It’s over drinks at the hotel bar that he comes to know Julian, which eventually leads to a whole lot of truth telling as the drinks are poured.

Danny dwells on the fact that his competition also is in Mexico City, and that he might lose the deal to him. Julian, who needs a friend, tells Danny that he’s a hit man whose job it is to help people like Danny. At first, Danny doesn’t believe him, but as they come to know each other over the course of the next several days, let’s just say that Danny has no reason not to believe him.

All of this makes the movie sound dreadfully serious, which it isn’t, at least not in total. The film can be very funny. Based on Shepard’s own script, “The Matador” is a punchy, stylized homage to the movies of Quentin Tarantino and Pedro Almodovar, filled with the sort of harshly colorful landscapes that make those in “Nanny McPhee” seem downright pastel in comparison.

The movie features a brave, cynical performance by Brosnan, who at once courts his James Bond persona and kicks it to the pond. He’s the proverbial live wire here, so unhinged and unpredictable, anything could happen if his wires get crossed. Naturally, they do, and so the movie enjoys another lift, particularly in the third act when Julian reconnects in Denver with Danny and his wife, Bean.

As played by the marvelous and underrated actress, Hope Davis, Bean relinquishes her suburban polish to become another highlight in a movie that’s filled with them. She’s the kind of person for whom danger is a necessary distraction. When she asks to see Julian’s gun, she knows immediately that it’s a .38, which not only surprises us, but which deepens this character-driven movie with yet another unexpected shift.

Grade: B+

On video and DVD

ELIZABETHTOWN, written and directed by Cameron Crowe, 121 minutes, rated PG-13.

Cameron Crowe’s “Elizabethtown” is a warm and fuzzy parable about failure and redemption, life and death, love won and love lost – love hanging in the balance.

It’s Hollywood all the way- slick and well-produced, so devoid of hard edges that even a pending suicide is treated as a gimmicky joke. Regardless of how tough life becomes for its main character, Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) – a failed shoe designer whose bum sneakers cost his company nearly $1 billion in losses – it never feels particularly trying, not even when Drew endures public ridicule.

Instead, in Crowe’s dreamlike world, real life is tucked neatly away so that the director can make room for the rather sizable suspension of disbelief audiences will need in order to enjoy the film. The good news is that isn’t difficult to do.

After an amusingly tense dressing down given to Drew by his icy boss (Alec Baldwin), he returns home prepared to kill himself. When he learns that his father has dropped dead in Elizabethtown, Ky., and that his mother, Hollie (Susan Sarandon), is unable to handle the details on her own, Drew decides to help, fully intending to tend to his father’s death so that he can then tend to his own.

Since few commercial movies with a substantial budget would allow for the latter, he meets a potential love interest in Claire (Kirsten Dunst), whose appealing insights into life tend to get people like Drew back on track.

As with Crowe’s best and best-known movies, “Say Anything,” “Almost Famous” and “Jerry Maguire,” this is a soundtrack-driven film whose nostalgic songs give it more emotional weight than it likely would have had without their inclusion. Will viewers leave it saying, “He completes me,” about Drew and his story?

Doubtful. But they won’t have wasted their time, either.

Grade: B-

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays in Discovering, Fridays in Happening, and Weekends in Television. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.