http://variety.com/2005/film/reviews/the-matador-2-1200528565/
“Deftly maneuvering through audacious mood swings and tonal shifts, “The Matador” emerges as a quirky yet commercial commingling of black comedy, seriocomic psychodrama, heart-tugging sudser and buddy-movie farce. Propelled by a fearlessly self-mocking perf by Pierce Brosnan as a swaggering vulgarian who’s losing his edge as an international hit man…”
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-matador-2006
“I walked into “The Matador” expecting one film, and saw another… Brosnan redefines “hit man” in the best performance of his career (“I facilitate fatalities”), and Kinnear plays with, and against, his image as a regular kinda guy. […]The movie’s writer-director, Richard Shepard, balances the macabre and the sentimental, and understands that although his film contains questions like “don’t successful people always live with blood on their hands?” its real subject is friendship.”
In a word, this movie was superb.
I thoroughly enjoyed trying to figure out what direction the movie would take next…it kept me on my toes.
Subtlety reigns supreme in this delicate yet confident debut from writer/director Shana Feste.
I saw over 20 films at Sundance this year and The Greatest was by far my favorite. The performances were truly special.
I will recommend this movie to everyone I know and will most definitely watch it again…
http://seattletimes.com/html/movies/2011558561_mr09greatest.html
“What makes “The Greatest” work so well is that Feste clearly remembers what it’s like to be 18 and to believe your one chance at joy has passed you by. And British actress Mulligan, who’s already shown in “An Education” that she can break our hearts with a sad-eyed glance, here does it with a perfect American accent and a wistful sweetness… The real drama is in the faces of the actors: Brosnan’s, in an early close-up as Allen desperately tries to erase all emotion and soldier on; Sarandon’s, as Grace stares fiercely at the man who drove the car that killed Bennett, willing him to say her boy didn’t suffer; Mulligan’s, intently listening to any detail about Bennett, trying to fill in a biography of a young man she loved but barely knew. “
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-greatest/Film?oid=1532133
“Sarandon knocks her scenes out of the park as usual, but the real surprise is Brosnan’s silent, agonized performance; his post-007 career has been one long campaign to prove he’s got the goods, and the extended, wordless scene in which the father rides home from the funeral, flanked by his wife and surviving son but abjectly alone, ought to settle the matter once and for all.”
Bringing back the retro classic spy thriller, this taut, well-executed espionage movie retains the high razor-edged emotive tension of The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1965), The Three Days of Condor (1975) or the more contemporary Page Eight (2011) or The Good Shepard (2006)…