'Tequila Sunrise's Flacid Approach Wastes Main 3's Talent'
When I was younger, I saw the poster for Tequilla Sunrise, read the plot and thought to myself: 'this sounds 'meh'. Seeing this in full for the first time as a 40-year-old today, thoughts, as I sat through it, were 'meh' and dreary. I'm not going to great detail into what it is, as the film bored the hell out of me, but to cut a long story short, it is basically a love triangle tale involving a drug dealer, his former childhood friend who is now a cop, and a waitress of whom the cop and drug dealer both fall for.
Interesting that one of the TV ads features a young Matt Le Blanc who played Joey in the sitcom, Friends and has the young actor, Gabriel Damon played a bespeckled kid; Gabriel later appeared in Robocop 2, 2 years after the release of this film.
At almost 2 hrs long this seems excessive and the story drags; to have three established & acting pedigree of stars (and then hottest A-listers) of the 1980s and 1990s cinema wallowing in what is a heavily dialogue-driven film, isn't a problem; the problem being that besides the romantic aspect, Tequilla Sunrise lacks the depth to muster up engagement from the audience. Underneath all that sleek and glamour, unbelievably the rest of the film is shockingly bland with its humdrum & flaccid approach, throwing in a bunch of characters in a film that could be mistaken as an action thriller and still managing to do nowt with it. I was so bored I had to fast forward some of the dull parts. It's as if they took an action film, stripped away all the action and replaced it with well, nothingness. Gibson plays a drug dealer, Russell plays a cop with slicked-back hair - yet the film grants them no opportunities to display more than 10 mins worth of action, of which it was totally lacklustre. Well, thank goodness for Kurt Russell's follow-up to Tequilla Sunrise, Tango & Cash, whereby through his team up with muscleman Slyvester Stallone, a year after Tequilla Sunrise's release, that movie was a far better display of his acting prowess, not to mention charm from an action crime movie, more so than this so-called attempt of a crime thriller.The love arc is handled in a clunky and dreary fashion and the love scene involving Gibson and Pfieffer included two body doubles. Mel Gibson just came off the back of the Mad Max movies and the first Lethal Weapon outing, Kurt Russell was making a name for himself in the '80s with Escape to New York, Big Trouble in Little China and Michelle Pfieffer after her breakthrough with The Witches of Eastwick alongside Cher, Jack Nicholson and Susan Sarandon. All three in Gibson, Pfieffer and Russell have fared better elsewhere with much better material and scripts at their disposal: their characters are so poorly written they just don't generate enough actual emotion or tension for us as the audience to care about them and who they are.
Final Verdict:
Unfortunately, despite the premise, I just wasn't sold on it and it feels like Tequilla Sunrise existed just to plug their names, and nothing more.
This could have been so much more to be considered as a hidden gem, but it just never did enough. A dud on the resumes of Gibson, Pfieffer and Russell (and to most, a justifiable one to boot). It's a grave disappointment.
Overall:
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