Customer Reviews

Tequila Sunrise

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Mel Gibson and Kurt Russell are very good in this movie, and are very believable as lifelong friends at a crossroad. Mel is a retired drug dealer while Kurt is a cop. Not a likely duo to maintain a friendship. Michelle Pheiffer portrays the love interest of Mel, and do those two have chemistry! This is a perfect match, and they are combustible together. While this is an older film, it still has the ingredients that all great films do.

Tequila Sunrise is an excellent crime/action movie. It has suffered a bit from bad press, which in my opinion is totally unjustified. People have said, that the actors were wasted on this kind of movie. This is nonsense! Tequila Sunrise is one of the best movies in its genre BECAUSE it was made with good, instead of the usual mediocre actors. It shows clearly, that with good acting and a somewhat complecated script a rather unasuming movie can rise to unexpacted heights. Mel Gibson and Kurt Russel are particularly well suited to their respective roles as sympathetic ex-crook and not so sympathetic police officer. Michelle Pfeiffer in a somewhat unusual role as the woman in between these two lends a depth to the part which females in this kind of story usually lack. Finally Raul Julia as a mexican dope smuggler is a very enjoyable sight. You can never really hate him even when he starts issuing execution orders. A pleausre to watch.

First of all, leave it to Leonard Maltin to misjudge another movie. I don't know why it still surprises me sometimes.

This movie has all the style and story which makes me want to watch it again and again. Sparks really fly between Gibson and Pfieffer. The supporting cast is excellent. My favorite of whom is of course Raul Julia. Fantastic.

The story is a little confusing the first time through. But this is irrelevant on further viewings.

I highly recommend this to purchace. You will never grow tired of it.

I have no idea what other reviewers are talking about when they write that this movie is hard to follow. This is no Pulp Fiction, where the characters die in one scene and are walking around like nothing happened in the next. Tequila Sunrise is easy to follow, despite the twists. What good movie doesn't have twists? Of course, the second time you watch any movie, the twists make more sense - you can even say that about Pulp Fiction, which is one of the most confusing movies I've ever seen (the first time I watched it...). The plot for Tequila Sunrise is engaging, the characters are sexy, and the setting is great. There's relationship stuff for the women and cops and robbers action for the men. What's not to love? If you're not sure about buying this movie, try renting it first. I'm sure you'll be back to make the purchase. It's worth watching and rewatching over the years.

Mac McKussic (Mel Gibson) is an ex drug-dealer wants to go straight. Maguire (JT. Walsh) is an agent determined to put Mac in jail. He got the chance when he heard about Carlos (Raul Julia) an old friend of Mac, who also a drug-dealer himself, is coming to California...and Mac is the only one who know him. Nick Frescia (Kurt Russell) in the other hand, is the police who is responsible for the case. He is reluctant to pursue Mac since he is Mac's best friend. He believed in Mac but if Mac screw up he might have to put him in jail. Mac is attracted to Jo Ann (Michelle Pfeiffer) an owner of a restaurant and their relationship becomes a little complicated when Nick also trying to get close to Jo Ann.

I guess this is one of the best 80's movie I've seen. Mel Gibson and Michelle Pfeiffer's chemistry was awesome. Raul Julia gave one the finest performance. And I never really like Kurt Russell with his action movies...but it's an exception in this one.

Though I cannot deny that it is unbelievably cheesy, filled with practically every cliche one can imagine and contains tons of embarrassing dialogue (especially Kurt Russell's begging speech) and unconvincing love scenes (Mel, will you please kiss her like you mean it and stop squirming!), I LOVE this movie. It satisfies the romantic in my soul. Michelle Pfeiffer, J. T. Walsh and Raul Julia make it worthwhile. My favorite scene is when the former drug dealer, Mac, tells Jo Ann why he hired her lawyer, Andy, as his lawyer and why he felt he needed a veneer of respectability. Pure Magic! Don't you love it when a man will reform for the love of a woman?

No, it never will be a classic, but I enjoy it all the same.

This slick, modern neo-noir from "Chinatown" screenwriter Robert Towne makes up for its shortcomings with a charismatic cast. Using the well-worn "noir love triangle" formula, "Tequila Sunrise" is sort of a modern take on "Out Of The Past" or "Strange Love Of Martha Ivers". Kurt Russell and Mel Gibson are convincing as old pals who end up on opposite sides of the law, and Michelle Pfeiffer is a perfect choice for a "love interest" (duh!). One sticking point...Gibson as a coke dealer. He just doesn't seem "oily" enough. It is Russell who actually exudes the properly shady "noirish" vibe, even though he's the "law". On the plus side, this IS Robert Towne, so there is some very well written, mature dialogue for the actors to chew on. However, some unexplained jumps in the narrative raises speculation about a "director's cut" someday. Excellent support from J.T. Walsh and particularly from Raul Julia, who absolutely nails his character, projecting more depth in much less screen time than fellow cast members. By the way, the much discussed "hot tub" sequence screams "body doubles!" to this viewer--watch it closely (like you need encouragement!)

"Tequila Sunrise" is worth seeing for three reasons: Kurt Russell's perfectly drawn noir cop, the sheer physical gorgeousness of Russell, Gibson, and Pfeiffer, and Raul Julia's stylish turn. It's incredible that the same person who wrote "Chinatown" (Robert Towne) brewed this cup of weak tea, whose only accomplishment here is to plate up a serious batch of eye-candy for a couple of hours (not that there's anything wrong with that).

TS's script fails because of its core dilemma: it presents shady, not to say outright evil characters, like a former high-level cocaine dealer, that it also wants you to LIKE. This problem starts with Gibson's role, Dale (Mac) McKussic. Mac, as written and as played by the too-endearing Gibson, is absurd. We are asked to believe that the cuddly, studly, loving Dad is actually the victim here, with a nasty ex-wife, traitorous friends, and an ambitious pal on the police force who wants to move up by collaring Mac's former connection, the legendary cartel leader "Carlos", and who may (or may not) be willing to use Mac to do it.

Gibson's Mac asks you to shelve everything you ever knew about the revoltingly evil nature of cocaine peddling, years of which have apparently left not the slightest stain on Mac's lovability (not to mention his conscience). Never mind all those schoolchildren that the stuff Mac brought in will reach, or the murderers and sociopaths he helped make rich . . .you just stay focused on those baby-blues of his.

Set in the South Bay area of Los Angeles during the 1980s, this story focuses on the difficulties of Mac, a former cocaine smuggler who once enjoyed a serious reputation in the drug trade. Now he wants to go straight, but, as Mac whines, "nobody wants me to quit." Mac's old friend, Lt. Nick Frescia (Kurt Russell), who heads up the area's police drug enforcement unit, might be ambivalent on that score, himself. Russell's Frescia is the only authentically played character in the film: hardboiled, ambitious, slick, and a tad flexible on the rules of engagement, but at heart on the right side.

Nick doesn't really want to send his old pal up, but Nick is under pressure from D.E.A. agent Hal Maguire, (another villainous turn by J.T. Walsh) to use Mac to find and bring in "Carlos". Nick likes Maguire about as much as he likes "Carlos", and is put in the position of choosing between a chance to get Carlos by trapping Mac, or standing between Mac and Maguire's ruthless tactics. As it happens, the mysterious "Carlos" has some "accounting matters" that he wants to clear up with Mac, and despite Mac's protests, is on his way into town, his ETA coinciding with that of Javier Escalante (Raul Julia), a Mexican drug enforcement officer working with Maguire, who is also after "Carlos".

Matters between Mac and Nick become more complicated when they fall for the same woman, restauranteur Jo Ann Vallenari (Michelle Pfeiffer). Deeply attracted to Jo Ann, Mac has taken to eating at her restaurant, always at the same table, offering law enforcement an opportunity to bug the table and to blackmail Jo Ann into cooperating as they try to use Mac to get to "Carlos". In-between all this, Mac hires Jo Ann to cater his son's birthday party, and, needless to say, the boy also falls for the pretty restauranteur (who is also a damned good cook - she not only runs the restaurant, but can dish up pasta quattro fromaggi with the best of them).

Jo Ann is actually a red herring: the truth is, she's only there to provide some romantic interest and relieve the macho essence of the film, and it shows - from a mile off, you can smell the clunky attempt to work her into the story so that it has some sex. The script also calls for Jo Ann to be "slick" but she isn't, not the least bit. Smooth, yes; slick no. The delicately pretty Pfeiffer, at this point in time, just didn't have the bite she later displayed as "Catwoman" and in "White Oleander", when her cherubic prettiness had hardened a bit. It's not Pfeiffer's fault - Jo Ann's part is badly written - maybe a young Lauren Bacall could have pulled it off.

Naturally, Nick also falls for Jo Ann and for awhile there, the viewer isn't sure who Jo Ann really trusts or who she is really interested in - the way this is written, she probably wasn't sure, either, till the last page. Oh - wait, she gets into the hot tub with Mac before the last page. Let me think- is that before or after she made love to Nick in the leaky wine cellar?

Finally, "Carlos" chugs into town, with enough cocaine on board to buy and sell OPEC; everyone meets up in the same place at the same time; more perfidy and double-crossing is uncovered; the guns come out; the explosions start; Jo Ann figures out who she's really in love with, all to the accompaniment of Raul Julia's rendition of "Santa Lucia".

"Tequila Sunrise" tries hard, but that's its problem: you can see it trying hard to be snappy and noir-ish and suspenseful and layered, but it isn't any of those things. There's a difference between a layered story and a confusingly written one - this is the latter. The characters' motivations aren't clear, and they are unbelievable as written. Only Kurt Russell inhabits a role well-anchored in the film tradition this movie apes, but doesn't fulfill. It's a great disappointment, given the talents of its cast and scriptwriter, that "Tequila Sunrise" is so eminently forgettable.

If you manage to know who is who and what is what un that film you will be a genius. Cops are cops and at the same time criminal drug dealers. Drug dealers are convicted drug dealers and yet they are friends. Friends are friends and yet they are cops. And you start all over again in any direction. In that business only friendly cops can survive and the best friends will have the upper hands on their lesser friends. Add a spoonful of love in that and the woman who brings that in will be courted, attacked and befriended on all sides and from all sides. She will be a happy girl indeed, and yet she will have to choose and she will choose the one she loves and not necessarily the one who is on the good side of the drug dealing road. That's the main quality of this film and the actors are just perfect for the job because they seem to believe the deep guano they are telling us. Of course everything is false, a lie, a pretense, a shameful shame but we find the rhythm just perfectly Californian, not too fast, not too slow, just good and nice with slow pauses here and there for us to recapture our breath that might have escaped us to go to more peaceful climates. And they manage to make you like the girl, and like her future husband and like the friend of that future husband, no matter which one of the two, the one who will survive of course. Beautiful. Now don't believe one word of what they say about the future of our world and that cocaine is finished and the future is in grass. When I am told that I feel like crossing the road in front of my house and getting on all fours and starting to graze. That's the cosmic dimension of the philosophy of that film.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

Like many of the other reviewers, this is one of my all time favorite movies. It's the kind of movie that would make me want to go to the theater if it were playing today. It's got that same film noir feeling as classics from the 40's. The chemistry amongst the three main characters is great, the story and settings are compelling, and for the ladies in the audience, Mel & Kurt are looking their best! The only fault I can find with this movie, which I only noticed because I've seen it so many times, is when Michele Pfeiffer's character claims not to know Mel Gibson's character's first name ... by the time this scene comes around she's heard it many times. Other than that, I think it's perfect!