Chris Vognar

12:07 PM CDT on Friday, July 7, 2006

By CHRIS VOGNAR / The Dallas Morning News

With no more Disney bankroll or Miramax name to rely on, Harvey and Bob Weinstein more than ever depend on their acquisition wiles. Their instincts are on display with two new DVD releases this week.

Harvey picked up The Matador at Sundance 2005, when his separation from Miramax and Disney was in progress. The Libertine was supposed to be released as part of Miramax's Weinstein housecleaning last September. But, like The Matador, it ended up coming out under the banner of the brothers' new enterprise, the Weinstein Company.

If the new company has an M.O., it would seem to be good, naughty fun. The Matador fits the bill. The Libertine does not.

Sundance was abuzz when Harvey forked over around $7 million for The Matador. What he got was a seedy and slyly funny buddy movie about an assassin (Pierce Brosnan) and a salesman (Greg Kinnear) who strike up an unlikely friendship at a Mexico City bar. (It has grossed about $12 million domestically.)

The story becomes implausible quickly, but you might have too much fun to notice. Mr. Brosnan is a hoot in a sort of James Bond-gone-to-seed role, and director Richard Shepard comes up with some imaginative visual strategies to illustrate the hit man's midlife crisis. He also contributes to one of the most fawning audio commentaries ever recorded, but hey, nobody's perfect.

If The Matador is an edgy crowd pleaser, The Libertine comes off as a high-art head scratcher.

The Libertine benefits from the usual strong performance from Johnny Depp (playing the libidinous John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester). He gets in trouble with King Charles II (John Malkovich) for penning a bawdy play in 17-century London, but he creates plenty of other problems by failing to keep his pants zipped.

Director Laurence Dunmore uses natural candlelight, which helps accentuate the grotesquerie of the characters and their surroundings. The choice also yields a grainy look that makes the film look like it was shot from the bottom of a dirt pile. This isn't a bad film, but it is one of the Weinsteins' least commercial releases at less than $5 mil domestically.

The Weinsteins had a unique situation under Disney. They took chances and rolled with their gut on low-budget fare (Clerks, for instance), but they could also turn around and bankroll big prestige movies such as The English Patient and Cold Mountain.

These are different times, and the Weinsteins now distribute different kinds of movies. To paraphrase Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond, they didn't get smaller. Their pictures did.

E-mail cvognar@dallasnews.com