Ticket Stubs #44: No Bull

Article by Sean Wilkinson,
a.k.a. The Ticketmaster

Happy Throwback Thursday, Ticketholders!

When writing the first draft of my last post, I mistakenly referred to El Aguila as "The Matador" (perhaps channeling my inner Man-Bull?), which inspired me to create this post about the 2005 film, The Matador. This review is a big milestone in my long history as an online critical voice of varying success, not for any anniversary significance like a fifty-post milestone, but as the last review I would ever contribute on the now-defunct Yahoo! Groups platform, back when I was still calling my column SW@ Ticket. I stopped writing the column for awhile to focus on getting myself graduated from San Diego State University, and later resumed it on Today.com (a former blogging site that was soon purchased and repurposed by NBC as the online home of The Today Show) before moving the column to MySpace. Boy, do I know how to pick 'em or what?
Remember to like and comment down below because we're about to travel back sixteen years to a review FROM SW@ Ticket #53: No Bull (September 22, 2006).

Well, maybe a little bull. Greg Kinnear and Pierce Brosnan star in The Matador; a movie that is less about bullfighting than about Brosnan's character, who is a hit man (matador is the Spanish word for killer).
Brosnan's hit man is suffering from the psychological yips and befriends Kinnear's businessman while both are on assignment in Spain. Kinnear helps Brosnan get out of the hit business and Brosnan helps Kinnear with his self-confidence and self-sales. It's funny, it's matter-of-fact, which makes it even funnier, and the cover makes sport of cheesy action movie posters while the movie itself has nothing to do with action. And to top it off, the soundtrack features The Killers, of all the bands in the world. Two weeks of good, mindless fun at $3.95.

B+

Ticketmaster's Note: That's another instance of anachronistic recommendation from the time when movies could be rented physically. On most platforms nowadays, The Matador can be streamed for free (PlutoTV, RedBox, Tubi, Plex, and even Amazon Prime and VUDU, which usually charge per film), while the price to view has risen a whole dollar and four cents to $4.99 on YouTube, Google Play Movies, and Apple TV+.

As I have begun doing with these Ticket Stubs posts since the Assault On Precinct 13 issue from around this time last year, here is the unedited text of the original review (which I changed somewhat for the version I contributed to my Greatest Hits portfolio because of subsequent alterations in the movie's box art to what you see above). Unprofessional prose like, "Movie X is a cheaper version of Movie Y" was also omitted for the more polished version.

Well, maybe a little bull.
Greg Kinnear and Pierce Brosnan star in The Matador, a movie that is less about bullfighting than about Brosnan's character, who is a hitman (matador is the Spanish word for killer). In the same vein as Analyze This/Analyze That but with a lower budget, Brosnan's hitman is suffering from the psychological yips and befriends Kinnear's businessman while both are on assignment in Spain. Kinnear helps Brosnan get out of the hit business and Brosnan helps Kinnear get promoted, then they go on their merry ways.
It's funny, it's matter-of-fact, which makes it even funnier, and it has one of those cheesy action movie covers with the chromed-out, underlined titles where 'MATADOR' gets bigger with each letter and 'THE' is written really small on top of it (which makes it even funnier because The Matador is about as much about action as it is about bullfighting). And to top it off, the soundtrack features The Killers, of all the bands in the world. Two weeks of good, mindless fun at $3.95.
B+

If the Lyric Fits: "I've got soul but I'm not a soldier" -The Killers, "All These Things That I Have Done."

SW@,
out.

And with Throwback Thursday concluded, stay tuned for the oft-promised and recently delayed Anime Spotlight that has you wondering what all those S's are for.

Ticketmaster,

Out.