The Matador

I probably see, on average, one movie in the theater each week. I don't plan on writing a review for each film I see though. Last week I wrote about one of the movies I saw, but not the other. This afternoon I went to see "The Matador". For the first half of the movie there wasn't really anything special. It wasn't a very good first half. Then something happened, in a movie that I expected to be a quirky dark comedy. The movie grew a heart. The characters developed a relationship, a friendship. Now the average comedy might take some time to get to know it's characters, and may even allow a little sceen time for a friendship to exist, but this movie went further. It became about friendship, about two people actually being considerate of on and other. It didn't end with some punchline, or gooey happy ending. It had respect for the charcters and thier feelings and motivations. It also had respect for us as an audience. As I write this, I realize even more how that early bad first half wasn't a set-up for a joke, rather a prelude to a deeper exploration into the true purpose of the film. Now here's my little 'Focus-on-the-Family' disclaimer: The Pierce Brosnan character is a bad-guy, R-rated version of his James Bond. This means that he is not as respectful of women, life or the English language as one might hope. Also there was some bull fighting and I saw some alchohol and tobacco usage, just to let you all know.