After the Sunset (2004)

Warning #1: the following is a review of a Brett Ratner film – the much-maligned director who ran the X-Men franchise into the ground with The Last Stand and who gave us the cinematic pairing no-one asked for in the Jackie Chan/Chris Tucker-led Rush Hour series.

Warning #2: it's not an entirely negative review.

After the Sunset, a 2004 heist flick featuring Pierce Brosnan, Salma Hayek, Woody Harrelson, Don Cheadle and Naomie Harris, is a film I've always had an inexplicable soft spot for. Deep down, I know it's not a classic. Heck, superficially, I know it's not a classic. But I do consider After the Sunset a success in that overdone "light-hearted film with a cast of good-looking people set in an even better looking location" genre. Best of all, it's devoid of the kind of self-satisfied smugness that makes the Ocean's films so difficult to endure.

After the Sunset begins where most heist films end, as jewel thieves Max Burdett (Brosnan) and Lola Cirillo (Hayek) retire to the Bahamas after stealing a valuable diamond. In pulling off their last caper, the pair elude Max's FBI nemesis, Stan Lloyd (Harrelson), who's spent the past seven years of his life trying to catch him. When Lloyd shows up in the Caribbean, convinced Max is planning to steal another priceless gem on display in a berthed cruise ship, the pair form an unexpected bond.

Pretty much everything in After the Sunset has been done before and done better – for starters, check out Brosnan's superb remake of The Thomas Crown Affair – but it remains a fun, undemanding, inoffensive caper comedy.

The cast has some enjoyable chemistry; Brosnan and Harrelson make an unlikely comedy duo, sharing a number of the movie's best scenes. Meanwhile, Hayek and Harris' characters are more than just (admittedly, spectacular) eye candy (actually, After the Sunset's women are far more balanced and level-headed than the men). Cheadle's Henri Mooré, a local entrepreneurial gangster, is underused as the film's most intriguing character. Before his unsatisfactory exit, he does deliver one of the movie's best lines after Max discovers Mooré is really American: "Yes, actually, it's Moore. I put the little thing on the 'e'. Matches the culture."

After the Sunset's emphasis is clearly on comedy and characters – there's a particularly nifty gag involving Max and Stan attempting to salvage each other's relationships over dinner – but it's at the expense of the film's flimsy heists, the intricacies of which should be the jewel in a caper film's crown. Sadly, both of the movie's heists are lazily undeveloped, which is a fairly damning flaw for a film of this genre.

Ratner makes extensive use of the gorgeous Bahaman scenery and the cinematography is full of rich, vibrant colour. Meanwhile, veteran composer Lalo Schifrin, the musical genius who gave us the Mission: Impossible theme, delivers a slick, low-key score (though it reaches ridiculous heights of cheese during the movie's romantic climax).

After the Sunset is far from perfect, but there are worse ways to spend an hour and a half. It's a bit like one of those holidays where you sit about and don't do a thing – the time whizzes by quite breezily; just don't expect to have gained anything from the experience.