After The Sunset Review

The jewel robbery in After The Sunset is a blink-and-miss affair, just an aside to the real story - the tale of Salma Hayek's pendulous boobs hammocked in the stringiest bikinis, unbelievably exotic shots of Malibu, and pegs upon intoxicating pegs of the good life.

There are cocktails in all shades of the spectrum, groovy Carribean beats, desolate moontlit seas, and lap-dancers. That's After The Sunset for you, a travel brochure for a paradisiacal holiday, and all that the hoary Brosnan and wantonly underdressed Hayek do, is model it for us with their ability to look at home smoking Havanas or lying sprawled on chaise-longues.

Stan Lloyd (Woody Harrelson), is the goofy FBI agent who gets reduced to playing Watson to the Sherlock Holmes character that's Max - the jewel thief (Pierce Brosnan). Stan has come to try one final time to bust Max's potential coup, assuming he is going to try snitching a huge Napolean diamond that's on display on a luxury-cruise moored in the harbor of paradise island.

But Max and his Lola (Hayek) have retired and have no intention to get back to their theiving ways. Lola, particularly, like the stereotypical housewife, is happy to cook disastrous English breakfasts and go au naturel at the drop of the hat on the empty beaches.

But Max is restless and gets goaded on into one final heist, both by Stan and Henri Moore (Don Cheadle), a gangster who is building a paramilitary training outfit on the island. While avoiding Lola who keeps blocking his path by peeling off her sheath, and throwing red-herrings around for an enthusiastically stupid Stan, Max chalks out his own plan to get at the rock.

Stan and Max even end up in bed together when Max is thrown out of their house by Lola, and slather sun-tan lotion on each others' back while going fishing. For all the temptation, Max doesn't admit to his intentions and Stan drags on hanging to his tailcoats, like a man being tugged by a race horse that's toppled him.

Naomie Harris is Sophie, the local police officer with a ridiculous accent and an irritatingly inflated opinion of her own sex-appeal. She keeps carping about how white-men just want to get a piece of her, sounding rather like Jessica Rabbit who was definitely sexier, and is reinforced in her opinion by a drooling Stan who follows her with a great-big hanging tongue.

The heist in the end is quite like a kid fooling his playmates with a conjuring trick, so loosely planned, quick and unimpressive is it. Max is like the naughty boy in the gang of kids who is always one-up with his little gags. But by then it doesn't really matter 'cause most of the audience are drunk and high on Hayek and the magical beaches.

A little more jugglery follows as Stan and Max start pulling one extra trick on each other and in the end, status quo is restored. Max is on his beach-chair, Stan is making a fool of himself and Lola is half-naked.

A good watch definitely, but not as the stylish super-robber movie you might be expecting. This is a Hayek movie, atleast visually if not plot-wise. The humor is cute and because the two leading men look wizened and daffy respectively, it is how they enjoy their spa-massages and seaweed body-wraps that everyone would rather see. If you subscribe, go ahead and catch After The Sunset. You can probably forego your next cruise to Pataya.