text: THE MATADOR is hit-man movie lite....if you can say that about a hit-man movie. The violence is never really shown but often introduced. At first I was scared I was in for another retread of mid-90s gangster-hit-man-hipster-dark comedy BUT was happily surprised when I realized this is just a sweet and humorous story about friendship. Nothing terribly exciting happens in this film but every bit of it is kept me grinning. The three leads have the best chemistry the big screen has offered in recent years and it looks like they had a great time making this film together. The writing is sharp though at times it felt as if the script had been adapted from a stage play because of the one set dialog scenes. This is a good film that I probably won't remember for too long but at the time it was a complete joy. Good film.