Random Movie Night Episode 2: ‘Tequila Sunrise’ Features Mel Gibson As The World’s Dullest Drug Dealer

On the Random Movie Nightpodcast, Uproxx’s Mike Ryan and Keith Phipps watch and talk about a movie selected by a random number generator.

For this second episode of Random Movie Night, Mike Ryan and I watched Tequila Sunrise, a saxophone solo-filled sort-of thriller from 1988 written and directed by Robert Towne. The film was a big hit in its day, though, as we note, it hasn’t enjoyed the long cable afterlife of other films from the era. It’s kind of an odd movie, combining the story of a love triangle with a crime story that features a twist you’ll probably see coming a mile away. It’s from a phase when Mel Gibson was just becoming a big star in the U.S. (and when he hadn’t quite shed all of his Australian accent), when Michelle Pfeiffer could virtually do no wrong, and when no one rocked a slicked-back, Pat Riley-inspired hairstyle quite like Kurt Russell. We hope you enjoy. You can listen below or subscribe to the podcast via iTunes. (We’ll be adding Stitcher and Google Play soon.) For a fuller explanation of a podcast, here’s a post explaining it a bit more.

And to read the essay on Tequila Sunrise referenced in the podcast, one that compares it at length to Casablanca, here it is: “Play It Again, Casablanca,” by Elaine Lennon

We hope you’ll join us for the next episode, too, when the random number generator has us watching… well, you’ll have to listen to find out.