slightlymad22 Continuing my plan to watch every Mel Gibson movie in order, I come to Tequila SunrisePlot In A Paragraph: Mac (Gibson) is a drug dealer who wants to go straight. His old and best friend Nick Frescia (Kurt Russell) is now a cop who is assigned to investigate him and his friendship with a Mexican dealer named Carlos, who the police believe is coming to town to meet with him.him. Both men fall for Jo Ann (Michelle Pfeiffer) a restaurant owner. It was actually an effort to get through this movie. Dull, bland, uninteresting and just boring. I actually contemplated turning it off on several occasions. All of the cast look good, but when they appear bored with it all. There is a good idea in Tequila Sunrise, but it just doesn't work. At least not for me. Tequila Sunrise ended the year the 26th highest grossing movie of 1988 with a domestic gross of $41 million.

statuskuo This movie is so mediocre, it screams to want to be a better movie. So that's the frustration you get as you watch some really good moments get buried in TERRIBLE dialogue, goofy plotting and ridiculous characters. Why did I think it was the middle of the road? It is well made. By well made, I mean it looks and feels like L.A. in the late 80's. It's sweaty, everything looks late afternoon and reminds me of tequila on cocaine. It's the atmosphere of that time. And it's perfect. Then you get these bobbleheads who ruin it with talking. Frankly, I've never seen Michelle Pfeiffer so wooden. She's got as much sex appeal in this movie as a billboard for genital herpes. Russell is grossly mis-casted. Strange how Alec Baldwin was first considered. It would've been an interesting choice.With all the earnest dark brooding noir sense, it becomes slapsticky Mel at the end (with Raoul Julia). While fun, negates the rest of the movie. This thing was a patchwork, not yet fully cooked before production started. Still, love L.A. in the 80's though.

Scott LeBrun This 1988 filmmaking effort for legendary screenwriter Robert Towne (of "Chinatown" fame) is slick, extremely well shot (by the equally legendary Conrad L. Hall), and generally absorbing. It does indeed go far on the charismatic performances by the star trio (that's not to mention the solid work by an exemplary supporting cast). It does boast a compelling theme of friendship, and the things that can put a severe strain on it. The characters are torn between what they have to do and what they would prefer to do.Towne goes with a traditional idea of having two boyhood buddies ending up on opposite sides of the law. McKussic (Mel Gibson) is a drug smuggler who's trying his best to get out of the business; Frescia (Kurt Russell) is a fast rising narcotics detective. Frescia, despite bearing no real ill will towards his pal, is not above manipulating others in order to get to McKussic - and, ultimately, Carlos, a big time drug kingpin who can only be identified by McKussic.All of the major parts are very well cast. Certainly they're all at their sexiest; Michelle Pfeiffer co-stars as Jo Ann, the savvy restaurant owner who comes between the two men. Raul Julia is a delight as the sinister Carlos, alternating between charm and menace. J.T. Walsh is superb as the unlikable, clueless federal agent whose methodology differs from Frescias'. (It's a truly sad thing that both Julia and Walsh are no longer with us.) Arliss Howard is Macs' cousin and partner in his shady dealings. Ann Magnuson has a cameo as Macs' ex-wife and Arye Gross has a small part as a lawyer. (Be sure to watch for a cameo by veteran director Budd Boetticher as a judge.)Admittedly the film is more interesting in its early parts. Towne begins it well but it isn't carried to a really satisfying conclusion. (Apparently the ending had to be changed in order to please the test audience. What a shame.) But thanks to Gibson, Pfeiffer, Russell, Julia, and Walsh, it's never less than watchable.Seven out of 10.

leplatypus Well, this movie was released before Pacino's movie and Pam's show but it hasn't their fame: in one word, it's about an ex-drug dealer who tries to lead a honest life but his past world wants to drag him back. If "CW" is a serious drama, this one is rather lighter as it happens in sunny Malibu (even if reading the title, i had always thought it was rather Miami). It allows a beautiful scene with figures against the sun and above all, it has an amazing quartet of cast: Mel, Michelle, Raul Julia and Russell, tangled with an interesting love triangle.However, if i don't give "7" but "4", it's because the story was a bit boring and very usual: cop vs dealer! For me, when we have watched one movie in this genre, we have watched them all. When we think about how old and how much money this fight has cost whereas the market is still dynamic, you can come to the conclusion that all this is simply irrelevant and wasteful: as written in Schiff's book "Real Crash", the government should think maybe to legalize drugs and become the one and only dealer. With that, maybe, there would be fewer victims, fewer crimes and fewer empty cop movies...