The “inexplicably hypnotic” 1988 movie Kurt Russell couldn’t resist: “Not exactly sure why”
Some movies work better in theory than in execution, and while Kurt Russell was seduced into making it for reasons even he couldn’t explain, he and everyone else were left to admit that the end result was much less than the sum of its parts.
Not that it was his fault, because when you hire Kurt Russell to play a charismatic, charming, and roguish character, you’re going to get exactly what you asked for. He passed his test with flying colours, but it was the things outside of his control that let the side down.
On paper, a romantic crime caper that united three of the era’s most popular and desirable stars together, working from a script written by one of their generation’s most celebrated and acclaimed screenwriters, was a recipe for success. At the box office, that’s what 1988’s Tequila Sunrise was.
Penned and helmed by Robert Towne in his second directorial effort after 1982’s Personal Best, the Academy Award-winning Chinatown, The Last Detail, The Yakuza, and Shampoo scribe concocted a breezy tale about Russell’s cop, Mel Gibson’s drug dealer, and Michelle Pfeiffer’s restaurateur.
Take three actors with star wattage to spare, parachute them into a tale of deceit, deception, and love, and all you need to do is sit back and watch the sparks fly. That’s why Tequila Sunrise earned over $100 million at the box office, and it’s also why the consensus was that it coasted by on that star wattage.
As for Russell specifically, he was ready to commit after reading the script. “I find Robert Towne’s style inexplicably hypnotic,” he said at the time. “He makes you keep turning the pages. You’re not exactly sure why.” It was enough to convince him to sign on, but once the film actually started shooting, it didn’t take too long for some on-set tension to rear its head.
John Carpenter’s muse was an innocent bystander, mostly, and even the notoriously short-tempered Gibson wasn’t involved, with Russell explaining decades later that “there were difficulties between Michelle and Towne, in all honesty,” noting that during those flare-ups, he “was a bit of a go-between, as it were,” whenever the director and his leading lady were at loggerheads.
Tequila Sunrise isn’t a bad movie by the strictest definition, but neither is it anywhere near as good as it could or should have been. The plot feels convoluted for the sake of it, the stakes never quite feel high enough, and if it wasn’t for the effortless charisma and endless charm of the Russell/Gibson/Pfeiffer triumvirate, it’d be boring as fuck. Instead, it’s just a bit boring.
Either way, despite being unable to explain what hypnotised him about the story so much, it worked out for Russell, since Tequila Sunrise became the highest-grossing release he’d ever been in. It didn’t hold the record for long, with Tango & Cash breaking it the following year, but it was a record-setter nonetheless.
