Pierce Brosnan `deeply proud` of his new movie Matador - opens to rave reviews at Sundance

Midway through The Matador, Greg Kinnear looks into Pierce Brosnan's lined, moustachioed face and guffaws: "What are you? A spy?"

Brosnan's mangy, self-loathing character, Julian, isn't -- he's a "facilitator of ities," i.e.: a hitman. But it's impossible not to read into the exchange, given Brosnan's history with suave superspy James Bond, a role the actor himself has confirmed he won't reprise.

So with Julian, Brosnan is certain to be seen as riffing on 007, sending up Ian Fleming's secret agent as a decrepit burnout. He will also likely be praised for what is his most entertaining performance - reports Jam Movies (Canada).


Pierce Brosnan and wife Keely Shaye Smith arrive for a screening of his film "The Matador" at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah January 21, 2005

In one scene, he parades through a hotel lobby wearing nothing but a black Speedo and cowboy boots. In another, he paints his toenails. And there is, of course, the moustache -- a form of facial hair that hasn't been in style since about the same time he was on TV playing Remington Steele.

"I'm deeply proud of the movie," Brosnan told the crowd at the comedy's premiere Friday night at Sundance. "I just kept turning the page (of the script) and at the end, I went back to beginning to read it again. It had heart, redemption and some wonderful characters."

The film came to Brosnan's production company as a writing sample from director Richard Shepard, who was just hoping to land a job writing The Thomas Crown Affair 2.
He had other, far less ambitious plans for his tale of a hitman facing forcible retirement. "I was going to make (The Matador) for $250,000 on digital video," Shepard recalls.

But, Brosnan's producing partner, Beau St. Clair, loved the screenplay and told Shepard she thought it would be perfect for the Irish-born leading man.

Shepard thought nothing of it until two weeks later in his New York home, he got a call from the actor. "I was in my underwear, watching Oprah, like all good writers do at four in the afternoon, and Pierce called me and said, 'I want to star in and produce your movie.' "

The end result is a story that's both fitfully funny and unexpectedly moving, depicting the surprising friendship that develops between Brosnan's Julian and Kinnear's David, a travelling salesman.

"It's almost a romantic comedy," Kinnear kidded at the premiere.

"It was like (playwright) Tom Stoppard meets Jerry Bruckheimer. Usually in scripts you have guns but no dialogue, or dialogue but no guns. This had both."
Assassinations aside, the biggest stunt onscreen re-mains Brosnan's go-for-broke work as he successfully parodies himself, his advancing age and his image as a flashy, globe-trotting womanizer and killer.

For a star so fused to a role as Brosnan is to Bond, middle-age can be tricky, treacherous ground. Try to cling to your youth and vitality and you're a laughing stock. Try to obliterate your image and you end up without a career.

A further whiff of Bond -- or more precisely, the end of his days as Bond -- in The Matador?

In one scene, Julian's handler cautions him that, if Julian takes a break from people, he won't get the chance to come back. They'll get someone "cheaper" and "younger," he's told.

Not to give away the ending, but Julian eventually does make a break for it.

Seems like Brosnan has too.

Thanks to `Billy` for the alert.

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