BlownPotential

Shepherding the Modern Movie Hitman
Celebrity Scoop with Joel Fowler

“Wait a minute... where do I know that guy from...”

As I stand in the lobby of the Ritz Carlton hotel in Georgetown waiting to interview Richard Shepherd, the writer / director of the Sundance sleeper “The Matador”, a S.W.A.T team of U.S. Marshals surround the perimeter. A middle aged gentleman of Arab descent strolls to and plops down into a seat near the room’s luxurious ebony-faced fireplace. He unbuttons his jacket and starts discussing something to another man in a dark blue suit that has been waiting a much longer time than I.

“Oh... I know I’ve seen him on the news... oh, who is it?”

Then the answer hits me while visions of CNN dance in my head – Ahmad Chalabi, former leader of the Iraqi National Congress. Chalabi is the man the U.S. government (mainly the CIA) has relied upon for internal intelligence (both good and bad) on a variety of Islamic issues (does ‘weapons of mass destruction’ mean anything to you?). He’s been exiled from his home country since 1956 and has been seen as a domineering and controversial figurehead for Middle Eastern diplomacy over the past twenty years.

Ahmad Chalabi is exactly the kind of political figure that could be assassinated by his enemies (which there are many). If such an action were necessary, someone like “The Matador’s” Julian Noble, the fictional centerpiece of this ‘hitman with a heart’ story, would be called in to erase such a hard and well-protected target.

Yet, what makes Shepherd’s film so enticing is the complete reversal of ego that his assassin (played by Pierce Brosnan) is ‘supposed’ to come standard with, along with his plastic explosives and gun barrel silencer. When describing the overall creative process to me, Richard casually calls his Julian ‘a pathetic mess on the verge of a nervous breakdown’ and ‘a sleazebag who is attracted to every kind of woman and likes to paint his toenails.’

“I think I do a pretty good job of setting Julian up as a really bad guy that the audience will find it tough to pull for,” gushes the nasally New Yorker about his handiwork. “I mean in the first ten minutes, he kills two people – [that’s] pretty much a real bastard [to me].”

The character of Julian is given a delirious, over-the-top extra push by the immense level of screen notoriety the actor who portrays him possesses. I mean, would James Bond actually ever have to pay for sex? Would Remington Steele ever walk across an upscale hotel in only his underwear and cowboy boots? Debonair is not in Noble’s vocabulary, and Pierce is the ideal choice for a celebrity who can go against type. “While I didn’t consider him while I was writing ‘The Matador,’” Richard explains, “I really couldn’t envision anyone else playing the part now – he’s Mr. 007, for heaven’s sake!”

In an abyss of stale plotlines, with “The Matador”, Shepherd is able to reconfigure not only the often dull espionage-thriller construct but also the almost goofy ‘softer side’ of a killer concept films like “Analyze This” have exploited to no end. I wondered how he came up with the idea of pairing such a burned-out killer with the no-luck, do-good suburban husband Danny Wright (played by the ever likable Greg Kinnear).

“Well, I’m an indie guy by nature... So, I like films that fail to fit one specific genre anyway. What really inspired me was [the crime drama] “Sexy Beasts.” Not in terms of content (I don’t think these two films are very much alike) but in the way it was able to rejuvenate a tired concept of ‘what would happen next.’ So, I asked myself, ‘what characteristics does a hitman have?’ Okay, now take those all away or change them a little. Who should I pair him up with? Instead of making Greg’s character a guy with bad luck, I see him as someone with no luck and a very unfortunate situation that makes the viewer connect with him very early on in the film... then it’s just about breaking clichés. The bad guy type always wakes up with a whore, so why don’t you have him steal her fingernail polish in the very first scene to show that this guy is totally different from what you expect?”

This anomalous and unconventional style is what got Richard Shepherd overlooked for years by a Hollywood community driven by dollars and maybe not sense. While it’s his sixth project (with a seventh on the way) he knows “The Matador” will be seen as his first film to the corporatized ‘them.’ One of those ‘thems’ is Harvey Weinstein, who was the leader of the Shepherd coming-out party at last year’s Sundance Film Festival. What attracted the Indie Kingmaker to “The Matador?” “I think Harvey saw the potential in the originality of this film. He has such a great way of seeing movies and talking about them, and selling them. So, we went to Sundance with no distributor and got bought up by Harvey for his new company (because he didn’t want our film mixed up in the whole Miramax going-out-of-business sale that went on this summer).”

Richard does admit this whole press tour thing is a new concept for him. Fancy hotel... flying first class... he jokes that he probably made his first film on half the budget it’s taking for him to travel to all these film festivals and public screenings. But, alas, he knows throwing himself out there is worth it to get the notice for a film that has almost no marketing budget.

Shoestring budgets have always been a way of life for Shepherd, who made “The Matador” for a fourth ($10 million) of what the average studio film goes for (around $40 million). So, how does a indie director cut costs? “Film the whole thing in Mexico – even if that means renting snow blowers in the dead heat of summer to create Denver in the winter... Have your big car explosion filmed with one take and prey your Spanish speaking special effects guy remembers we need to have it exactly timed to blow up the Porsche on [the count of] ‘cinco’ and not ‘quatro’... film all your interior scenes in a ranch house set and then crash a tree through the middle of that set on the last day of primary shooting (and again, do it with one take against a greenscreen).”

Though, even with the deeper pockets of Weinstein and Co., Richard knows that word-of-mouth will make or break this film. “We aren’t “Wedding Crashers.” We maybe aren’t going to appeal to a broad audience. But, I think if we build this movie slow, and get people talking about it, then it will be successful.”

While you want to root for the inventive and vastly entertaining “Matador”, the thought of blockbuster returns and critical accolades makes this critic a little nervous of what irony may lurk within such golden returns. Here’s to hoping Richard Shepherd never becomes wealthy enough or famous enough to become the next assignment of a broken assassin.