"Such a magnificent torero and such a boring man," observes Penelope Cruz's actress Lupe Sino of the legendary matador Manuel Rodriguez Sanchez (Adrien Brody) in Menno Meyjes's simply boring film.
Even Cruz's charisma and Brody's nuanced brooding struggle to lift the film to anything above turgid. The dialogue is trite and delivered almost exclusively at a whisper, and puzzlingly Brody is the only actor without a strong Spanish accent. The repeated close-up shots of a Toreador's twirling backside, and the parallels drawn between between Lupe and a bull are made with as much subtlety as said creature at full charge.
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