This flashy thriller is a strange kettle of tequila and no mistake.

You'll have as hard a time following the plot, as figuring out when it's meant to be taken seriously.

Robert Towne, who scripted Chinatown, wrote and directed this multi-mooded drug-bust drama set near the US-Mexico border.

Mel Gibson is the ex-cocaine king who the script tries hard to convince us should be allowed to go free after getting out of the business and falling for a good woman (Michelle Pfeiffer in an interesting portrayal).

It's Kurt Russell, though, who gives the film's best performance, as the cop who also beds Pfeiffer and has a long-term friendship with Gibson, although he, too, has problems with the screenplay's declarations of love, clumsily directed by Towne.

Raul Julia, playing a devious Mexican 'coke king', gives an totally misjudged performance that bears comparison with some of Orson Welles's less restrained cameos.

There's some good smart dialogue in all this, but the film's constant switches of mood and pace do it no good at all.

It's a scenario on which the sun never does quite rise.