Neo-Noir Watch: Tequila Sunrise (1988)

Watched:  07/27/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Towne

Tequila Sunrise (1988) was, to me, the sort of movie parents would go see whilst leaving the kids at home in those heady days of "they have fishsticks and can work the oven."  The film was advertised to adults, rated-R, and didn't look like a cop movie where our hero shot the place up and made jokes.  So my interest was muted.  Also, I don't remember having HBO when this likely aired and so I missed that window as well.

As a neo-noir, Tequila Sunrise feels positively old-school, like it should star Victor Mature and Richard Conte as opposite sides of the law who were boyhood pals and now find themselves at odds.  

Wait, that's Cry of the City.  Terrific film.

This film stars Kurt Russell as a cop who is on the verge of promotion to head of Narcotics for Los Angeles, but his boyhood pal, Mel Gibson, became a large-scale drug dealer, a bit of a legend in both drug-dealer circles and with federal law-enforcement.  Gibson is semi-retired as a drug lord, wanting to be an honest businessman his son can respect one day.  But nobody believes he's out, and they keep asking him for favors when all he wants to do is sell heavy farm machinery.  (I mean, honestly - pretty good investment idea.)

His ex in film is played by Signal Watch 90's crush Ann Magnuson.  

As the Feds close in (J.T. Walsh), using LA resources, Russell doesn't particularly want to bust his old friend, and in surveilling him - realizes what the feds think is some coded business operation at an Italian restaurant is actually Gibson hanging around because the manager is Michelle Pfeiffer.

However, Gibson has never made a move.  But Russell does.  Pfeiffer becomes entangled between the two as Russell believes Gibson is up to no good, and Gibson wants to know if Pfeiffer is helping Russell - but is still drawn to her.

Honestly, the plot gets unnecessarily convoluted - not so you can't follow it, but you can't help but think "there was a better way to do this".  But we do get Raul Julia as a Mexican Commandant, and he kind of out performs everyone else on screen.  Dang, that guy was good.

This movie wants to be slick and sexy, and relies mostly on hiring hot actors - did Michelle Pfeiffer ever have a bad hair day? - and it relies on them being charming as hell.  And in that - it succeeds.  But the story feels like a souffle that should have been left in the oven a bit longer.  It just seems like there's a lot of threads and they barely hold together at the film's end.  Smaller may have been better.

I had kind of associated this movie with Sea of Love and a few other Neo-Noir films from the era, and I'd probably rec Sea of Love over this one, unless you just want to see these actors at this point in their careers.  It's not bad, but it doesn't feel essential - except as a "yes, I've seen 1980's neo-noir films" checkbox.