Review: Sunset--Wyatt Earp Goes Hollywood

Sunset, directed by Blake Edwards and starring Bruce Willis and James Garner, was an interesting movie. I suspect the marketing department had no idea how to promote it.

Was it a comedy? A dramedy? A western? An action film? An insider’s view of Hollywood during its formative years?

Or was it all of the above? That’s the correct answer. All of the above which makes it a hard movie to pigeon-hole and that makes it a hard movie to market and promote.

The movie poster at left illustrates what I mean. A vintage art treatment, two smiling men, a man carrying a woman away like in An Officer and A Gentleman. Makes you think it’s a romantic comedy, doesn’t it.

Well, with a story line of domestic abuse, prostitutes, murder, crooked cops, and women in danger, it’s far from a rom com.

Darling Hubby and I watched it a couple of weeks ago when it was on Tubi. It may now be on Fubo.You can still find Sunset on Amazon for rent or sale.

I found the movie entertaining because I loved  in the way it presented Wyatt Earp (James Garner) as a movie consultant for westerns made during the silent movie era in Hollywood. That’s actually true. Wyatt Earp did serve as a technical consultant on early western movies. I don’t know if he worked on any of the Tom Mix films, but it was a good story—give or take a lie or two, as Earp remarks at several places in the movie.

Bruce Willis in one of his early film roles after the TV series Moonlighting plays Tom Mix with a lesser degree of smart ass than he exhibits in most of his films. In my humble opinion, Willis didn’t find the role comfortable, and it showed.

Garner stepped into his role like a man pulling on a pair of old, comfortable shoes. Maybe that was because he’d acted in many westerns on television and in movies, but he seemed like the real deal. He had even played Earp in a movie.

With Mariel Hemingway as the daughter of a murdered prostitute and Malcolm McDowell as a Charlie Chaplin-type character with some of Chaplin’s perversions shown, the film has a lot of action, snappy dialogue, and some cool lines. McDowell is suitably creepy and Mariel has a great line she bestows on Garner after she’s asked him to sleep with her.

Takeaway Truth

All in all, the film is worth watching for the Earp-Hollywood connection and for Garner’s performance. Catch it if you can and let me know what you think of it.

Joan Reeves aka SlingWords: The Word Slinging Adventures of Joan Reeves