The Matador

A man who has worked for years as a contract killer meets a sales executive on the edge of bankruptcy in a Mexico City hotel bar. He can no longer do his job and is having panic attacks. The film never makes the assassin cool; the narrative makes his coarseness, loneliness and social incompetence its source of comedy. The real subject is that both men believe they need nobody. Richard Shepard wrote and directed. Pierce Brosnan leads, in a part that is an open inversion of the spy image he had just left. Greg Kinnear plays the executive. Who it's for: those who like character comedy with black humour. Who it's not for: viewers expecting action; it is almost entirely conversation.