The Matador

Pierce Brosnan is terrific as a hitmanhaving a midlife crisis. When he meets up with a traveling businessman in Mexico (an equally good Greg Kinnear), a strange friendship blooms, with funny results. This is a good buddy movie, with two performers embracing blessedly strange material. Brosnan proves he doesn’t need Bond to impress, and Kinnear continues to excel at complicated roles. Hope Davis is terrific as Kinnear’s wife, trying to cope with the death of her son and trees falling through her kitchen ceiling. The movie manages to mix dark humor with serious emotions and actually winds up being quite touching. A nice feat for director Richard Shepard.