Things we might learn thanks to dross films like After the Sunset: 'Latino' women are scorching hot; there exists within the F.B.I. agents so inept that upon catching a shark whilst fishing, they will shoot them for good measure; women are nothing but mere objects that should dress in bikini's and keep their mouths shut when two epically superior men talk business with one another; stealing things is a good thing to do and theft is generally sexy.<br /><br />These are the things that After the Sunset, directed by Brett Ratner and starring Pierce Brosnan, glamorise. These are the ideas After the Sunset bring to the plate and exploit for mere entertainment. Make no mistake, this film is written by men; made by men; for men and I'm not talking about in a constructive manner like Oliver Stone's Wall Street. After the Sunset is close to dead in almost all departments. The thinking behind it is that a director will pull together a couple of actors everyone will recognise, a smoking hot actress everyone will like due to the range of outfits they'll get her in and then clear off to the Caribbean for a few months – oh, and they'll be shooting a film while they're there. But that's the grating thing with this film, all the actors and actresses have a smug sort of smirk on their faces throughout the experience as they potter about in a film that they know deep down is absolute junk and are there to merely enjoy the locale whilst systematically getting paid.<br /><br />Ratner does not even need an interesting story, if it's a few months in the Caribbean he'll take it. The film signals Brosnan's first post-Bond adventure and it feels very much like Brosnan's Bond himself has retired from British Intelligence, found himself a partner and gone off to a paradise to live out his days. The film opens with a Bond type stunt in which Max Burdett (Brosnan) and partner Lola Cirillo (Hayek) rob the F.B.I. of a diamond in a case cuffed to Stan Lloyd's (Harrelson) hand. What I found rather uncomfortable here is how a man (who is absolutely terrified) can be shown to be locked in a jeep while gas seeps through one of the heater vents and slowly either kills or knocks him out. This is juxtaposed with the two thieves kissing passionately as a cheesy song plays through the radio. From here After the Sunset announces itself as the sort of sick, uneasy and messy film it is and never until it has ended does it rise above the level it peaks at during the heist two minutes in.<br /><br />From here, Burdett and Cirillo retire to the utopia that is the Caribbean. Theft is their fetish, it is their non-sexual object or activity that really turns them on. At the mere mention or thought of stealing something, even in the process of stealing, these two characters are thrust wildly into the mindset of passion. In fact, this film carries a strong air of sexuality be it women as the object of desire or a homoerotic undertone. The first thing is that while the film glamorises theft and stealing, it maintains that air that everything done in this film is 'sexy'. Selma Hayek exists in this film to merely wear a bikini and look attractive, that is it. In fact the film is so distasteful that her attractiveness and general sexual presence has to act as the film's main source for comedy with the secondary source being Harrelson's bumbling and inept federal agent antics. Throughout the film, Hayek will slowly remove outer pieces of clothing; come onto the character of Max Burdett and in one instance act out a fake sadomachistic act over a two way radio to con an eavesdropping character, all in the name of comedy and all in the instance of pointlessness. Is this a film or a lingerie advert? <br /><br />Then there is the unoriginal idea for a narrative that consists of Burdett going for 'one last job'; the job in question a diamond on display on a luxury cruise ship in the area. Max doesn't even know it's there until Agent Lloyd points it out to him, lucky he did otherwise they'd be no story. From here, Max is a man in crisis. He ignores his vows that he should be writing for the love of his partner; he becomes confused over his sexuality once his marriage threatens to fall apart and then sleeps with Harrelson's character in one of a few homoerotic scenes after this. But Agent Lloyd is equally out of his depth in a film that doesn't have any. Shooting a gun at a shark, down into the floor of a boat stating "You have the right to remain silent!" has to qualify as one of the dumbest excuses a film has to offer for mere petty laughs. Then there is the further evidence that this film exists for mere comedy driven romances when Lloyd begins to develop a relationship with Jamaican police officer Sophie (Harris). She begins strong and independent and I had a scrape of respect for the film in having her that way. But the film then has the male character of Lloyd chip away at her personality and soon enough, they're together in a mindless and somewhat silly series of scenes.<br /><br />So the film fails as a heist film even if the final act revolves around one. The film also grotesquely fails as a study of relationships and what we find attractive. Women are mere objects and if they're not to begin with then they will be tamed eventually. Burdett and Lloyd go through separate crises themselves and must share beds and rub suntan lotion on one another before the film gives us a final weak and incomprehensible twist. If the film does do something right, it's that it ends when we want it to.