MILLENIAL SPRING BREAK

SUNDOWN

Film Review by Fiore 

Pantelion Company is releasing a film with two major purposes; to highlight Mexican filmmakers and to spotlight dance DJs.  Let’s address them in order.

Director Fernando Lebrija and Screenwriter Miguel Tejada-Flores (yes, there are dreaded three name people even south of the border) present a movie that is a combination of BEACH BLANKET BINGO and HANGOVER.  The plot is a rehash of a multitude of spring break movies, with a cutting adult edge.  Unfortunately, the adult edge, outside of sexual misunderstandings, is questionable.

Logan and Blake, played by Devon Werkheiser and Sean Marquette respectively, opt to ignore parent’s admonitions and directives and scoot off to Puerto Vallarta for spring break.  Their quest for a hedonistic adventure fails dismally when Logan loses his family heirloom Rolex watch to a minor Mexican bandit.  Here, the story dips, as Jordi Molla, playing the antagonist, is no one to be taken seriously.  He would be more fitting in a PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR movie.  In typical teen spring break flicks, the boys opt to regain the Rolex, have their sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, and still escape from Mexico in one piece, all while finding the meaning of true love.

Added into this predictable template comedy are Camilla Belle as Logan’s love interest, and Silverio Palacios, who is quite notable as Chuy, as hustling cab driver, related to everyone in town.

KEY SCENES TO LOOK FOR:

1.      The Rolex showdown

2.      The morning after discovery

3.      The dognapping

As stated above, the second primary purpose for this film is to highlight dance music and the DJs who create nightclub fervor.  Steve Aoki, Paul Oakenfold, Chris Lake and Adrian Lux all make cameo roles in SUNDOWN.  The DJs only appear as themselves, spinning the turntables, just as bands appeared with Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon in the BEACH BLANKET summer flicks of generations past.  Of course, those films were wholesome fun and didn’t need transvestite humor to carry a sequence.  

In addition to the spinmeisters, SUNDOWN features the music of Kaskade, Above & Beyond, Parachute Youth, Mana, Los Jao, Tokimosta, Bloodybeatroots, Fedde Le Grand, Hardwell and the Mexican Institute of Sound.  This is certainly not a Woodstock line-up.

If you’re into the nightclub dance scene, there will be value in seeing some top spinners and mixers doing their thing.  If you’re looking for a refreshing new spring break comedy, SUNDOWN can’t provide it.  Most of the film has a ‘been there done that’ feel with a few raunchy scenes thrown in for a more salient appeal to the current R-rated comedy crowd.  Perhaps I’m getting a bit too old to appreciate spring break movies, but this one was not my cup of tea.

THE GRADE FOR SUNDOWN = D.