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Good story, Not enough for a whole film

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Feel good heist movie with former James Bond Pierce Brosnan and the ever gorgeous Salma Hayek. It really is a beach variant of Oceans Eleven: add sunshine, cocktails, tropcical islands and you have got the ingredients of "After the Sunset". Seen it many times now and it is the ideal popcornmovie and datemovie. Feels like a throwaway but it actually has got a solid and surprising funny story. Acting is great. Soundtrack great. Sunny beaches are lovely. And so is Salma Hayek. Just dream away and have a good laugh while watching it. Lovely heist comedy. Smaller endnote: the soundtrack copied some themes from the Bourne movies and even from the classical composer Gorecki. But that's just insider fun.

This is a light, happy-go-lucky movie set mostly on Nassau in the Bahamas. Meet Max and Lola, two diamond thieves who have retired to this idyllic location to spend their loot. The problem is Stan, a shambolic, rather wild-eyed FBI agent who has been outwitted by them for years. Not content with letting them enjoy their retirement, he shows up on their (beachfront) doorstep and proceeds to lure them into another big heist. Lola's content with watching sunsets, but Max still has the bug. Will he take the bait? Complications arise because of the involvement of two locals: beautiful cop Sophie and bad guy Henri Mooré.This movie was enjoyable enough as summer television-like movie, but it doesn't go much deeper than that. There's not a lot of realism and art here. It was like a television movie.I don't know what makes television movies different from regular movies. Is it the writing? The plot development? The acting? They have a certain cliché nature, don't they? At times this movie definitely had the cheesiness and artificiality of television shows like the Love Boat and To Catch a Thief. That's not necessarily a bad thing. A lot of people love that kind of thing. It's not too demanding. And it's fun. People were laughing.I suppose part of the problem for me was, well, Pierce Brosnan and Woody Harrelson. I just couldn't see these two with Salma Hayek and Naomie Harris, respectively. Isn't the age difference a little too much? Is it wrong for me to point out that -- unlike the women they were with -- these two were (by 2004) no longer hot enough to generate heat in their love scenes? I have seen these two actors deliver outstanding performances. They are strong enough to pull off a film like this in their sleep. However, I am just not interested in them enough to spend two hours watching their buddy antics (drinking, fishing, even in bed). They are not lovable fun characters to me, although I think that's the effect the director was trying to achieve. These scenes were too forced. I saw no buddy chemistry.There was a good deal of wise-cracking (eg "I knew that when I married you. I knew that when I divorced you!") and slapstick (eg Stan gets hit in the head by a trombone.) The scuba scenes and the cruise ship scenes at the end were not believable, not that I think this movie's intended audience would care about that. It's all meant to be part of the fun.The person I was with walked out of the film halfway through. I thought it was OK. I mean, I didn't hate it.

Perhaps a lobotomized mollusk could endure this paint-by-the numbers masterpiece. Even Salma Hayek in a skimpy bikini and lingerie can't save this contrived nonsense. However, I must admit that Woody Harrelson playing Stanley Lloyd, a doofus FBI agent is worth a chuckle. If Stanley is based on a real agent, it is easy to understand why the FBI bungled the 9/11 attacks against the Twin Towers in Manhattan and the Pentagon.In reality, this seems to be a lame sequel to the revised version of the The Thomas Crown Affair, starring Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo. Except, this time, Pierce has switched from stealing art to jewels.There are so many holes in the script that you could drive convoys through them. For example, Agent Stan is suspended by the FBI after allowing Max to steal a rare diamond that was in a case carried by Stan. But, although suspended from the Bureau, Stan magically appears in Nassau, Bahamas, with his gun, badge, identification card and six suitcases of high-tech surveillance equipment. And, he walks right through Bahamian Customs without anyone questioning.This was a big-budget movie (estimated at $58 million) which was initially released by New Line Cinema during 12 November 2004. It never made money. After two years the worldwide gross was a meager $61.3 million which means New Line only received approximately $30 million.It is difficult to believe that Pierce, Salma, Woody and Don Cheadle read the pathetic script by Paul Zbyszewski (who during 2010 became co-executive producer of the Hawaii Five-O TV series). Apparently, director Brett Ratner simply offered big money and they gladly conspired to swindle the public. Obviously, New Line and Brett Ratner thought Pierce, Salma, Woody and Don in a movie was a slam dunk. The love-story subplot between Pierce and Salma is pathetic and the pseudo love scenes are lame. But, they are magnificent compared to the bi-racial love story between Woody and Naomie Harris, who plays Sophie, a local Nassau cop. During their big love scene she receives a call on her cell phone and pushes Woody away. He begs for five minutes. "Can you do it in two minutes," she asks. He says "yes" and begins humping while they are still wearing underwear.I won't bother explaining the idiotic ending other than to say it is appropriate for a Saturday morning kid's show.

With the cast on show (not to mention Salma Hayek looking particularly luscious) you'd have thought this film would have been an entertainment shoo-in, but it consistently fails to quite hit the mark. For a man who played Remington Steele, Pierce Brosnan looks surprisingly out-of-sorts as Max Burdett, the Sir Charles Lytton-type master thief who is nudged into retirement by his capable but long-suffering girlfriend and cohort (Hayek). Funnily enough, I thought Woody Harrelson, who makes a good fist of his role as the hapless FBI agent obsessed with catching Burdett, might have been better in the lead role, with someone like Chris Penn (sadly underused) playing his part.As others have said, the scenery is gorgeous, but the actors are burdened with a script which has some good ideas but fashions its characters woodenly. And, once again, Hollywood's addiction for sugary endings caused them to miss a much better one. Let me just say mine would have had Harrelson and Brosnan finding a note on the deck.My vote: 6 + 1 for Ms. Hayek, YMMV.