Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Tequila Sunrise Blu-ray Movie Review

Shades of Gray Turn Yellow and Orange

Reviewed by Michael Reuben December 29, 2013

Tequila Sunrise is the second of four features directed by Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Towne (Chinatown), one of the most respected scribes in the movie business. It was the most successful of his films and by far the most durable, and not just because it featured three major stars (star-driven vehicles being a staple of Warner Brothers during the Bob Daly/Terry Semel era when Tequila Sunrise was made). When the film was released, both critical and audience reaction focused on the glamor of leads Mel Gibson (whose reputation was then still unblemished by personal misbehavior), Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell, as well as the film's elegant L.A. locations. Indeed, as the film's producer has confirmed, the film was designed to be beautiful and enticing, a philosophy that prompted the replacement of the original cinematographer with the legendary Conrad L. Hall, whose delicate photography was nominated for an Oscar and won that year's award from the cinematographers guild.

But Tequila Sunrise wouldn't be so compelling if it were just a series of pretty pictures. Towne's script may not have the moral depth he achieved in Chinatown, but his ability to draw complex, multi-faceted characters was undiminished. He had three of them for leads, and several more who are essential to the plot. Not content with creating real people behind the pretty faces, Towne also effortlessly melded genres so that the film's story is never predictable. The viewer really does have to pay attention to what people are saying and doing—and also to what they may be hiding—to follow the story. Even then, some viewers complained that the film's plot is incomprehensible. (It isn't.) Tequila Sunrise is a crime story, a romance (two romances, in fact), a tale of two buddies who grew up on opposite sides of the law and a meditation on friendship. Towne tells all of these simultaneously, which means that the narrative often seems to proceed sideways.

I don't subscribe to the theory that a 25-year-old film can be "spoiled", but readers who disagree should skip this section. I don't reveal endings or major plot turns, but I do discuss content, especially when a film is well beyond any reasonable statute of limitations for spoilers. Someone who wants to see a film "cold" shouldn't be reading reviews anyway. Viewers in 1988 who had seen the trailer for Tequila Sunrise had the opening sequence "spoiled" for them, but they took it in stride.

Gibson plays Dale "Mac" McKussic, formerly the biggest coke dealer in Southern California, who is now desperately trying to go straight selling irrigation equipment to farmers. (A line about lemon growers is an obvious nod to Chinatown.) Mac's ex-wife, Shaleen (a too briefly seen Ann Magnuson), says it's because their son, Cody (Gabriel Damon), got old enough to ask what his father does for a living, and she may be right.

The DEA, in the person of Agent Hal Maguire (J.T. Walsh), doesn't buy Mac's change of heart, and in any case Maguire can't stomach the thought of a drug dealer retiring scotfree. He has Mac bugged, staked out and informed on, and he's stingy about sharing information with local law enforcement, headed by Det. Lt. Nick Frescia (Russell). Part of Maguire's hesitation is that Mac and Frescia grew up together. Maguire isn't sure that Frescia shares his commitment to bringing Mac to justice. Indeed, Frescia would prefer not to have to arrest his friend. "Whatever you're doing", he tells Mac, "do it somewhere else." But Mac assures his old friend that there's nothing going on, other than an "accounting problem" from the old days.

This exchange occurs at a fashionable restaurant, Vallenari's, where Mac is a regular, and the hostess and co-owner, Jo Ann Vallenari (Pfeiffer), is an elegant vision as she glides among her patrons, who include the district attorney, a judge and Mac's lawyer, Andy Leonard (Arye Gross). The DEA has the place wired, since Maguire is certain it's the nerve center of Mac's current operations, but Frescia remains unconvinced. Besides, he's already locked his sights on Jo Ann.

The tension between Frescia and Maguire comes to a head when Maguire receives information from the Mexican authorities that a drug kingpin known as "Carlos" is coming to town. A mysterious figure whom only a few people have actually seen, Carlos was Mac's supplier. As Frescia is forced to admit, if Carlos is on the scene, then Mac really must be back in business. A contingent of Mexican Federales arrives, led by Comandante Escalante (Raul Julia), to assist the DEA in setting a trap for Mac and Carlos. Meanwhile, the boyhood friends, Mac and Frescia, have a new source of conflict—who will win Jo Ann's heart?

It's typical of Towne's writing that he chooses to give one of the film's most important speeches to a minor character, Mac's cousin and housemate, Gregg (Arliss Howard), then buries the speech in a voiceover that fades into Dave Grusin's jazzy score. The speech is a boozy meditation on the durability of old friendships. Maybe they don't last forever, says Gregg. Maybe they just wear out, like old tires. "There's just so much mileage in them and then you're riding around on nothing but air." In the course of Tequila Sunrise, Mac McKussic will have occasion to test the condition of two old friendships, one with Frescia and the other with Carlos, who turns out to be more than just a business associate. And both of these old friendships will have to survive a speed bump in the form of Mac's new feelings for Jo Ann Vallenari.

Michelle Pfeiffer's performance in Tequila Sunrise may be its best and also its least appreciated. She doesn't have any of the showy, emotional scenes that Gibson and Russell get as Mac and Frescia, because her character is a disciplined businesswoman whose success has been built on self-control. As Frescia says, she is "letter-perfect". She's also tough enough to stand up to the likes of Agent Maguire when he hauls her in for questioning. "She beat the shit out of you, Hal," Frescia says afterward. "Ask anybody in the room." But Jo Ann has feelings, and Pfeiffer reveals the welter of conflicting emotions as Jo Ann discovers that she's being pursued by two handsome and purposeful men, neither of whom is straightforward because deception and manipulation are inherent to each of their businesses (or, in Mac's case, former business—maybe). Jo Ann's self-control serves her well when the vague criminality swirling around her two suitors ultimately materializes in the form of real crooks with deadly intent. "Dating is not a criminal activity", she tells Mac, but that depends on whose world you're in.

Tequila Sunrise Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Conrad L. Hall took over the shooting of Tequila Sunrise one week into production; he replaced Jost Vocano, who had recently shot RoboCop for Paul Verhoeven. The switch is described at length in the commentary by producer Thom Mount, who wanted the most glamorous and beautiful image possible, and sought out Hall, because he was an acknowledged master of painting gorgeous images with light.

Hall always followed his own vision, and he was much more interested in color and mood than sharpness and detail. One of Tequila Sunrise's signature scenes is a conversation between Mac McKussic and Nick Frescia in which one sees only silhouettes of the two men as they sit on a swing set against the orange of a setting sun. The visuals are expressive and atmospheric in conveying both the friendship and the likelihood that it's waning, but the scene is neither detailed nor sharp, and it never has been. Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray captures the orange with proper saturation and no bleeding, and differentiates the silhouettes without artificial sharpening, but that's all there is—and all there should be.

Substantial portions of Tequila Sunrise take place in settings where indistinctness is a deliberate part of the visual design. The film's entire finale is set at the waterfront at night, where fog obscures much of the area. The lighting at Vallenari's is deliberately soft and low; numerous scenes are set at night; and some are set in the rain. Hall's lighting ensures that the essential information is always visible, but the rest often fades into indistinctness. In well-lit settings that would naturally be visible, much more detail is evident. Examples include scenes in Frescia's police station, where the DEA has set up camp, and various scenes inside and outside Mac's beach house in daylight. Blacks are solid, and colors are vivid.

Still, this is far from the best that Warner has produced for a catalog title. Visible gate weave during the opening credits suggests an older transfer, since current scanning technology has largely eliminated this kind of artifact. Moreover, at this point in the life of the Blu-ray format, there really is no excuse for a major studio to squeeze a 115-minute film onto a BD-25, as Warner has elected to do with Tequila Sunrise. Even without major extras, that decision forced the average bitrate down to 19.96 Mbps. The film is essentially a drama, with almost no scenes involving significant action, and Warner seems to have gotten away without compression artifacts, but at the cost of a less detailed image than should be achievable from elements of this vintage. Whether detail was stripped to allow for easier compression, or it is simply absent because an older transfer was used, is impossible to say for sure. Either way, the image is acceptable (and certainly leaps and bounds beyond the DVD), but Tequila Sunrise deserved better.

Tequila Sunrise Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's original stereo soundtrack has been encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. It's an atmospheric and effective track, and it's good that it was left in its original format. The all-important dialogue that gives a Robert Towne script its unique flavor is always clear, and the sound effects have subtle tweaks that give them an expressive element you may not notice until repeat viewings. (For example, one important gunshot is unusually loud; a specific splash of water has a particularly explosive quality; a struggle is accompanied by a sound that resembles an open gas jet running before someone lights a match.)

Dave Grusin's score is one of the best he ever wrote, and it was part of a successful soundtrack CD. I haven't heard the CD, but I suspect Grusin's instrumentals sound better on it than on the film's soundtrack, where they can occasionally become slightly muddy, probably as a result of being mixed with so many disparate elements on Eighties equipment. The fault is almost certainly in the original mix, not in the Blu-ray, and it's minor.

Tequila Sunrise Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The extras have been ported over from Warner's 1997 DVD of Tequila Sunrise. Missing are some brief production notes and the outdated cast and crew bios. ● Commentary with Producer Thom Mount: Mount recorded this commentary for the DVD. He doesn't speak continuously; pauses multiply as the film progresses. Producers tend to focus on logistics rather than creative decisions, but the logistics of making a film should be of interest to any true enthusiast, and Mount is informative on the origin of the project, the history of casting changes, and the negotiations with Warner that led to the film being financed independently through Mount's company, for a "negative pickup" by Warner. Mount is also informative about the twenty minutes that were cut from the film after the first preview (unfortunately, none of that footage appears to have been preserved) and the changes made to the ending, not for plot but for presentation. The original ending spent too much time tying up loose ends, whereas the filmmakers realized after watching the film with an audience that, once the romantic triangle of Jo Ann, Mac and Frescia reached a conclusion, the film was effectively over. ● Theatrical Trailer (480i; 1.78:1, enhanced; 1:30): The trailer is cleverly edited to lay out key elements of the film, while still leaving much to be explained.

Tequila Sunrise Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Tequila Sunrise has aged well, primarily because it has the one thing that star-driven studio vehicles are so often missing: a well-written script. Studios never lack for talented crew and capable producers, but writers have rarely been valued in Hollywood, and most studio executives don't know good writing when they see it. (Listen to Mount's commentary for some of the terrible "notes" offered by Warner executives.) Towne's script is filled with memorable characters who say interesting things, and their interactions hold up to repeat viewing better than any special effect. Despite a less-than-ideal video presentation, recommended.