After the Sunset

Review by Jason Gaston

Pierce Brosnan plays a cunning thief, but if you think that means that After the Sunset is anything like The Thomas Crowne Affair, think again.

Retiring to the Bahamas with his sweetie, Salma Hayek, after a diamond heist goes bad and he gets a bullet for his troubles, Brosnan is enjoying a quiet and yet boring crime-free life until an FBI agent with a grudge, played by Woody Harrelson, comes calling claiming that he knows that Brosnan is going to go after a diamond that will be docking in the Bahamas for a week.

Of course, being a bored jewel thief, the diamond does peak Brosnan's interest and also the interest of a crime lord played by Don Cheadle who wants Brosnan to steal the diamond for him. But who will get the diamond? Who will walk away as the tagline says?

By the time the end of the movie comes along, you probably won't give a rat's ass.

After the Sunset tries to pass itself off as a slick and witty crime caper, but it is nothing but a retread of the same formulaic boredom that has been seen a million times before. The witty dialogue comes off as cornballish and Brosnan himself doesn't even seem too troubled to try to make his character anything more than Bond-lite.

The gags are old, the jokes are moldy, the action is nothing but routine, and the plot is recycled. As the movie trudges and lurches along its predictable path, it's evident more and more with each passing minute that After the Sunset is nothing special even though it has no problem pretending to be.

I wouldn't call this movie completely terrible, but I won't exactly be falling all over myself to see it again. The real winner in this fiasco, though, has to be Don Cheadle who appears to have the most fun in his role and who gets the biggest laughs of the movie.

After the Sunset is the same stuff we've seen over and over again with nothing new added to even try and spice it up. This movie is just old... it looks old and it feels old.