Talk about "After the Sunset" here:
Review by: Breanne Derby
Plot Summary
Elusive jewel thieves Max Burdett (Pierce Brosnan) and Lola Cirillo (Salma Hayek) have stolen their last diamond and moved the an island in the Caribbean to live happily together off of the fortune they've made together over the years. Unfortunately, Stan Lloyd (Woody Harrelson), the FBI agent who has been on Max and Lola's case for a number of years, will not let them retire in peace. The island which Max and Lola are living on happens to be one of the islands scheduled as a stop for the "diamond cruise," a showcase of many precious gems, including the third and final Napoleon Diamond, the only one of its kind which Max and Lola did not steal.
Review
Shot on lovely
Paradise Island in the Bahamas, this film has a relaxed feel to it, as one might expect to have if they were living in "Paradise." The characters are all quite light-hearted and they have a good time together, even though they don't necessarily get along. There are jokes sprinkled throughout the film, along with many goofy scenes of things that wouldn't be expected if it were to take place in real life. It's not a very realistic film, as I imagine the FBI agent wouldn't be come friends with the jewel thieves in real life, but it's a comedy, and sometimes for the sake of humor reality has to be disregarded a bit. The film is a lot of fun, even if it's not necessarily realistic. The entire situation is like a big game to Max and Lola, while Stan takes things incredibly seriously, not liking when they make jokes at his expense.
The beginning of the movie was very exciting because it starts off with the clever ploy Max and Lola use to steal another diamond, and then their move to Paradise Island, their new life there, and Max's inability to become accustomed to relaxing. Unfortunately, after the idea that there will be a very expensive diamond coming to the island, the film slows down at an incredible rate. Much of the film is spent wondering whether or not Max is going to steal the diamond, and many apparently useless events take place during this time. At first it was alright, and there was plenty to hold my interest, but this "was he going to/wasn't he going to" theme dragged on and on until the near end of the movie.
I imagine that this movie was created to target both male and female audiences. The male audience would be entertained by the idea of stealing the diamond, all the danger, and Salma Hayek, and the female audience would be drawn in by Pierce Brosnan as a leading man, and the extensive amounts of drama that took place between Max and Lola and how he lied to Lola over and over, and all the emotional trauma that she experienced because of him. Personally, I think the movie would have been much more entertaining if they would have left it as a comedy and not tried to make it incredibly emotional as well.
Conclusion
This would have been a fairly good movie, it was entertaining, and fun, the bulk of it was well produced and I liked it, right up until the last five minutes of the film. If it had ended five minutes before it did, it would have gotten three stars, but the last five minutes of the film succeeded in ruining everything that the previous hour and a half had built. If you are going to rent this movie, turn it off five minutes before it’s over, and you will have seen a fairly decent film, but if you watch the last five minutes it will turn the entire film into a lousy waste of your time. Most of the movie is really quite good, and thus I'm giving it two stars, but if the rest of the film had been mediocre then the last five minutes would have brought it down to one star. If I were grading on the last five minutes alone I would have to create a new rank of negative stars. The end was really abysmal.
