Breezy caper flick? If After the Sunset were any breezier, you'd be blown sideways.
With Pierce Brosnan in charming (what else?) beach-bum-chic mode, ample opportunity to sample the, well, amplitude of Salma Hayek, and the energized comic return of Woody Harrelson to the big screen, it's also a sunny diversion from films of Oscar-worthy gravitas about to swamp theaters from now till year's end.
Besides, it's tough to stifle affection for a tropical-tinged, Day-Glo-tinted lark that has a jewel thief and his FBI pursuer slathering suntan lotion over each other, snaps from crime suspense to hapless slapstick with an accidentally reeled-in shark, suggests that premature ejaculation is a virtue, is modestly romantic and major-league sexy, and isn't too hip to fire off gag lines like, "My family has been in manure for three generations." ... "No shit?"
Meanwhile, underwater sequences, a car thrown into chaos by remote control and a cat-and-mouse chase through a chaotic parade (even though someone gets comically conked by a trombone valve) are frisky nods to Brosnan's Bondian persona.
Blending a dash of 007 and a splash of Thomas Crown with a bad-boy twinkle and scruffy, salt-and-pepper growth, Brosnan plays master jewel thief Max Burdett who, with his shady-lady lover Lola (Hayek), pulls off their apparently final score, snagging the second of three Napoleon diamonds, the world's largest flawless stones. Retiring to the Bahamas, they plan to luxuriate in beachside splendor, but dogged G-man Stan (Harrelson, in full comic zest), ever in failed pursuit of his elusive prey, follows the pair to their Caribbean retreat, convinced they can't resist purloining the final diamond, passing through on display in a traveling cruise-ship exhibition.
As Harrelson, out of his jurisdiction, partners professionally and personally with a local, hot-mamma cop (fetching and fiery Naomie Harris), the two at-odds couples bizarrely dovetail into each other's lives to form an amusingly dysfunctional quadrangle, advising each other on relationship hang-ups even as they maneuver to outfox one another.
Brosnan and Hayek strike up a sexy chemistry, even as her character, in predictable romantic despair, frets that he'll never commit to her while there's a cool piece of ice to be swiped. But few actresses fret with such erotic heat. Don Cheadle scores in little more than strung-together cameos as an island gangster with Zen pretensions (a drug trip is "pharmaceutically assisted personal expression"), and Brett "Rush Hour 1-Whatever" Ratner directs with brisk pacing and brash style, adding up to a clever, satisfying payoff.
It isn't To Catch a Thief. Isn't even The Hot Rock. But After the Sunset is fizzy and funny, a sun-baked romp with a hot bod and no tan lines. It's worth a few stolen moments.