AFTER THE SUNSET *** 

 Charm is important in movies. Actors don’t like to admit this, because it makes them look like mannequins coasting on a smile and a pair of twinkly eyes. It’s different for theatre actors (some would say ‘real’ actors): charm gets diluted by the need to project, and the busy intensity of being onstage. In films, however, actors can relax; the camera likes a laid-back, ingratiating presence. Admittedly it’s hard to make a great film that way – but at least you can make an amiable one, at the low end of the three-star ‘Recommendable’ spectrum; a film like, say, After the Sunset.  

 This has Pierce ‘James Bond’ Brosnan doing his suave master criminal – he’s rich, robbing mainly as a hobby – from The Thomas Crown Affair, and Woody Harrelson making a comeback of sorts as the vain FBI agent on his trail. Most of it is set in the Bahamas, where Pierce has ‘retired’ with girlfriend and partner-in-crime Salma Hayek – but Woody thinks he’s planning a heist, and determines to watch him like a hawk. “It’s OK to be happy to see me,” he teases, turning up uninvited at his quarry’s palatial home. “Just because you’re English doesn’t mean you have to hide your emotions”. “I’m Irish,” corrects 007. “We tell people how we feel. Now fuck off.”   

 The whole thing is banter and cartoonish back-and-forth, also including Don Cheadle as a floridly-spoken local gangster with a line in “financially-procured female companionship” and a mysterious Mamas And The Papas fixation. The thief and the agent constantly try to one-up each other, the rivalry spiced with slapstick and tongue-in-cheek homoeroticism: they go fishing together, rub sunscreen on each other’s backs, and finally share a bed – at which point the FBI (not unreasonably) assumes they’re gay lovers. They obviously haven’t met Ms. Hayek, though her fiery Latina presence may be a bit too intense for such a frivolous, fun-in-the-sun caper.

 As in Thomas Crown Affair (and indeed James Bond), Brosnan’s nonchalance carries a touch of snobbery. There’s an early montage where Salma – who desperately wants to go straight – organises dinners with other married couples, and his contempt for these badly-dressed, overweight tourists is palpable: it’s not that they’re legit, they’re just so crude. Brosnan lives in a world of luxury, putting his opponent up at a five-star hotel – complete with a supercilious manager listing the facilities, from “seaweed body-wrap” to free tennis lessons – just to give him a taste of the good life.

 The film is at its worst when it suggests that being rich makes Brosnan more sympathetic, or when it forgets (which is often) that he’s still a crook. The film is at its best – like another cheerful caper, Ocean’s Twelve – when it allows its stars to be charming: when Brosnan and Harrelson catch a shark (Woody, like a good FBI agent, shoots it first and asks questions later), or when Woody plants a bug in the happy couple’s room and Pierce and Salma find it – but pretend they haven’t, and drive him nuts with simulated sex and jokes about his mother.

 There are two moments when After the Sunset threatens to be more than just fluff. The first is when we venture beyond the luxury hotels to the real Caribbean, dirt-poor shanty towns with bowed-down inhabitants. The second, much later, is when Brosnan uses his friends (without their knowledge) to carry out the heist, and is looking very pleased with himself – only for his smile to fade as first Woody then Salma walk away in disgust. Both make the same point – that success carries a human cost, and the flipside of luxury is often exploitation – but neither is developed; before long we’re back to the twists and playful one-upmanship. After the Sunset is fun, but charm only takes you so far.