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After the Sunset

If "After the Sunset" is about anything, it is about the sight of a bunch of rich actors (including Pierce Brosnan, Salma Hayek and Woody Harrelson) getting paid to cavort around in fabulous locations and, almost as an afterthought, shoot a movie at the same time-clearly, they are having a blast but precious little of their fun translates to the audience. In this low-rent caper comedy, a bored former jewel thief (Brosnan) is tempted to come out of retirement when a priceless diamond docks in the island paradise where he and his girlfriend/accomplice (Hayek) have shacked up; along the way, he is dogged by the FBI agent (Harrelson) whom he had previously humiliated with his previous robberies. All of this is told with the barest traces of wit, excitement or coherence and even those with a taste for the genre will throw in the towel long before the end. The only surprising thing on display is the fact that hack director Brett Ratner (the auteur behind the "Rush Hour" films and "Red Dragon") somehow manages to achieve the impossible-he has figured out a way to make even the sight of Hayek’s heroic cleavage somehow boring after a while.

1 STAR Rated PG-13

Noel

The new Christmas-themed film "Noel" is being used as the guinea pig for a new distribution model for independent films-it will simultaneously be appearing in theaters, running on the TNT cable station and it will also be available as a low-priced temporary DVD that will self-destruct 48 hours after purchase. In other words, this means that potential audiences will now have many opportunities to skip the film while waiting to see "The Incredibles", watching "Desperate Housewives" or renting "Shrek 2". Following the loosely connected misadventures one Christmas Eve involving a lonely divorcee (Susan Sarandon), an insanely jealous cop (Paul Walker), his long-suffering fiancee (Penelope Cruz), an apparently deluded old man (Alan Arkin) and a priest who has lost his faith (an unbilled top-level actor-I won’t spoil the surprise, except to suggest that it may be the last person that anyone would want to see playing a faithless priest), director Chazz Palmenteri (who also gives himself a cameo) gets some nice performances from his actors (Sarandon is especially fine and this may be the closest that Walker ever gets to genuine acting) and it goes down a little easier than other current holiday films I could mention. However, the screenplay by David Hubbard flat-out doesn’t work-the attempts at cynicism early on feel as forced as the sentiment towards the end and there are a few plot developments involving certain characters that are both highly implausible and inadequately resolved. As a full-price ticket, I cannot recommend the film but if you come across it on the tube, it does have enough modest virtues to make it worth having on in the background.

2 1/2 STARS RATED PG

Copyright © 2004 Peter Sobczynski
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While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.