Nostalgia Kinky

Arrow is releasing an extraordinary 4K special limited edition of Robert Towne’s neo-noir Tequila Sunrise (1988). Starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Mel Gibson, Kurt Russell, and Raul Julia, this new edition of Towne’s wonderful film includes hours of new supplements, along with Arrow’s incredible brand-new 4K restoration from the original 35mm negative.

Order this essential release now from Arrow or here in the States from MVD.

Tequila Sunrise is a very special film to me.
In fact, Robert Towne’s hypnotic neo-noir means more to me personally than most of my favorite films.
Let me explain.
Like any film lover coming of age in the eighties, I had my favorites. And my favorites meant perhaps more to me than most, as an only child who was constantly moved around. Unable to make friends, I made figures like Pacino, De Niro, Rourke and Gere my ‘best friends’, ensuring that my relationship with film and art in general has perhaps remained stronger (or stranger) than most average film fans.
On that note.
Nobody,
and
I
mean
nobody
means as much to me, though, as an actress I discovered at my grandmother’s house in the mid-eighties when I was around 13. I had no idea that seeing Ladyhawke on my Grandmother’s big-box old cabinet television would introduce me to the person who, along with Lou Reed, became my most valued ‘friend’ as a teenager.

In the twenty years I have been writing online and in print, I have rarely dared to write anything about Michelle Pfeiffer, or the group of films she made from the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties. Michelle Pfeiffer was the great actress of my youth and this group of films she made remains a bit holy to me. I’ve been scared to write about them.
I’m a good writer but not yet good enough to write about films like The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Russia House and Frankie and Johnny. I just feel too close to these films, to this actress. Even all these years later, my idolation of Michelle Pfeiffer and her work throughout my youth into my late twenties trumps any sort of critical eye I might have.
And I’m okay with that.

When she was reviewing The Russia House, legendary Pauline Kael wrote in The New Yorker that cinema had never seen anyone like Michelle Pfeiffer, and she was right.
Pfeiffer is a complete one-off, and to my eyes she remains the great American actress, the great Hollywood actress, and most importantly the great actress Hollywood didn’t deserve.
The fact that Pfeiffer remains Oscarless forever angers me.

Michelle Pfeiffer’s ‘Golden Period’ began with Married to the Mob in 1988, and it is just after her work with Jonathan Demme that Tequila Sunrise appears.
Let’s get this out the way,
Michelle Pfeiffer hates Tequila Sunrise, and its creator Robert Towne called her the most difficult actress he’d ever worked with.
Now, wait a minute.
What?
Nobody else has ever said anything like that about Pfeiffer and certainly Michelle has never been more openly hostile about a film than Tequila Sunrise.
At some point on the set of this film, one of the great American screenwriters and one of the great American actors had a very bad falling out. That falling out has loomed over Tequila Sunrise since its release, although Pfeiffer did her best promoting the film and praising her costars. Regardless, the tension between Pfeiffer and Towne has overshadowed what I think is a much more special film than it has ever been given credit for.
Robert Towne historian Lucy Bolton discusses the fallout during her excellent chat on Arrow’s new Blu-ray. Bolton also correctly frames the film and Pfeiffer’s role in their importance to her career and persona. While there are moments in her early career where the ghost of classic Hollywood comes through, it is Tequila Sunrise where we really see Michelle Pfeiffer become one of the great ‘stars’ and when I say stars, I mean it. Pfeiffer pulls decades of cinema sultriness out of her endless bag of tricks for her role in Tequila Sunrise, creating a rare modern performance that feels ‘classic’.
Pfeiffer is the only actress who has just as much in common on screen with Lauren Bacall as she does Meryl Streep. There’s still nobody else like Michelle Pfeiffer.
And here’s the secret about Tequila Sunrise that I’m not sure Pfeiffer ever recognized.
Michelle Pfeiffer is the lead in Tequila Sunrise.
Mel Gibson gets top-billing and Pfeiffer thought Towne had written her just as ‘the girl’ but viewed all these decades later, Pfeiffer’s restauranteur Joanna is the key to the entire film. She’s the most complicated and interesting character, and she is on screen just as much as Gibson and even more than her other male lead, Kurt Russell. Pfeiffer dominates Tequila Sunrise with one of the most subtle performances of a peerless career.

Pfeiffer is so brilliant in Tequila Sunrise that her bitter disagreements with Towne are a bit tragic. After all, this is Michelle Pfeiffer getting to read Robert Bloody Towne’s dialogue!
Do you understand how amazing that is?
What a dream.
And God, that Towne dialogue.
Damn, Robert Towne was a screenwriting genius. Dude could have just written Chinatown, and still he’d be a legend. Towne was a great director as well, although this and Personal Best stand as his only two great directorial credits.

What the hell happened between him and Michelle?
My man even got along with Faye Dunaway and he called the notoriously likable Michelle Pfeiffer the most difficult.
What the hell happened?

One of the great neo-noirs of the eighties, the sunny and beachy Tequila Sunrise is still riveting AF. A clever look at two best friends who happen to be a drug dealer and a cop, and the woman who they both fall for, Tequila Sunrise has always been so vastly underrated that this new Arrow 4K feels like a downright important release. Featuring Towne’s incredible screenplay, the breathtaking photography of Conrad Hall, a luscious Dave Grusin score, and its unforgettable ensemble, Tequila Sunrise deserves more love and praise than it has ever received.
I need this Arrow release to bring it and Pfeiffer’s performance that love and praise.

Pfeiffer’s dominance in the film doesn’t take away from how strong all of her co-stars are. Raul Julia gives a wonderfully sneaky and funny performance as a notorious drug dealer, and J.T. Walsh is pitch-perfect as an upright cop. Even better are the film’s two leads. Kurt Russell has never been sleazier than in his portrayal of a very torn detective, but his performance also has an odd charm about it, making this one of Snake Pliskin’s most complex roles.

Even better is Mel Gibson.
Goddamnit, Mel Gibson.
You broke my heart.
It is hard to discuss the man today, but he was sure was great in 1988. Mel Gibson was wonderful in this entire period onscreen, and his work here as the lonely, drug-dealing Dale is just about my favorite from his entire career. Pauline Kael made special mention of the moment Gibson looks at Pfeiffer delivering the iconic,
“Just looking at you hurts more.”
as being one of the film’s great moments. And gosh it is. I could watch Mel Gibson and Michelle Pfeiffer in 1988 all day long. Gibson nails the role, absolutely nails it, delivering a performance drenched in old Hollywood charisma and New Hollywood disappointment.
I sure do wish Mel Gibson had gone a different way personally, but the man was one of America’s most popular actors in the eighties and nineties for a reason.

If Tequila Sunrise has a weakness, it is perhaps a question of weight. For whatever reason, Towne fails to give the film the sense of sharp urgency it needs to really tip over into masterwork territory. Chinatown had a darkness to it and Personal Best had a seriousness that Tequila Sunrise just doesn’t contain. It is almost as though Towne chose to make a film so indebted to old Hollywood that he forgot he was still very much part of the new side.

The lack of weight and rumors of the Pfeiffer/Towne showdown have burdened what is a very winning film. Perhaps if it’d been made ten years earlier, or ten years later, Tequila Sunrise might have had some of the missing grit. Ultimately, despite its many allusions to classic Hollywood, Tequila Sunrise belongs to 1988, and the superficiality of that period provides it some additional baggage.

Tequila Sunrise was a small hit and got mostly positive reviews. It wasn’t the blockbuster a new film starring Mel Gibson might have become, but it did well enough and became a home video staple.
Personally, I still recall seeing it opening weekend with my mom in Evansville, IN, like it was yesterday.
Michelle Pfeiffer was the
great imaginary love of my lonely youth.
Why wouldn’t I recall it like it was yesterday?
I still have my vinyl copy of Dave Grusin’s incredible score, and my Pfeiffer scrapbook is packed with my original ticket stub and articles. I still even have the copies of Pfeiffer’s TV appearances from the period, all of which I recorded on VHS and saved like they meant the world to me,
which they
in fact
did.
Tequila Sunrise is one of my movies.
It is not perfect, but I’ll take a not-perfect film written by Robert Towne starring Michelle Pfeiffer over any masterpiece from 1988 you care to name.
Save perhaps, Married to the Mob.

I was so thrilled when I saw Arrow announce Tequila Sunrise that I was legitimately beside myself. And, buddy, did Arrow ever come through. What a marvelous release this limited 4K package is.
First, I can say as someone who has seen Tequila Sunrise theatrically and on every conceivable format, this Arrow 4K restoration is as gold as Michelle Pfeiffer. Finally, we can see Conrad Hall’s astonishing cinematography again, looking spectacular as it should. What a beautiful-looking and sounding release Arrow has put together here.

And the supplements for Tequila Sunrise are splendid. The talk with Bolton about Towne I mentioned earlier is one of my favorite extras in a long time. This is a tremendously insightful talk, and I so appreciated Bolton’s thoughts on Pfeiffer. We also get very informative interviews with the producer and 2nd Ad, plus a charming chat with actress Lala Sloatman. The package comes with a lovely booklet as well, a producer’s commentary, slip, and reversible sleeve. I absolutely love this release of Tequila Sunrise, and it’s so nice seeing a personal favorite treated with such care.

All these decades later, Tequila Sunrise still means the world to me and still gives me that unique feeling only connected to my favorite films of my youth.
Specifically, the films from my youth starring
Michelle Pfeiffer.
All this stuff makes me very emotional.

Tequila Sunrise is a great film made by one of our finest writers, starring one of our best actors. This new Arrow 4K edition is easily one of the best releases of the year and has my highest recommendation.

Just looking at you still hurts worse.

-Jeremy Richey, September 2026-

Enjoy the large gallery of vintage clippings I discovered related to Tequila Sunrise.