“Sundown” is the misbegotten lovechild of “The Hangover” and “Project X”: Stupendous in its stupidity, offensive in its attempts to be funny, and downright unpleasant from beginning to end. But to truly hate something requires a sizable expending of energy. To hate is to be fatigued, enervated by the object of your scorn. And yet here we are with “Sundown,” a film that’s inexplicably (and inexcusably) being rolled out into theaters nationwide on Friday the 13th. Despite my several attempts, I can’t find one redeeming bone in this film’s fractured body.
It begins with a last-minute spring break trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, for best friends Logan (Devon Werkheiser) and Blake (Sean Marquette). Together, these high school seniors embark on a south-of-the-border adventure with one objective in mind: to get laid. (Side note: apparently lowly high schoolers must now travel to Mexico to find someone to sleep with.)
On this trip, Logan makes sure to bring his father’s Rolex, a family heirloom that he believes women will be impossibly attracted to. Blake brings along his cell phone, mostly, which he uses to take video of all the carnal shenanigans for his website. The nature — or subject matter — of his blog is never really explained, though. All we see is Blake creepily uploading video and pictures of women in bikinis (or women without bikinis) that he spots on the exotic beach resort. I think this is a character trait that’s supposed to be comical (“Oh damn, there’s wacky, voyeuristic Blake going at it again!”), but it falls painfully flat.
The mission to have sex gets derailed when Logan meets Gaby (Camilla Belle), a gorgeous local bartender (and diligent law student) who takes a liking to our virginal protagonist. Gaby begins to look like Logan’s ideal woman. She’s charming and affectionate, supportive of his DJ aspirations. But this dream of a night quickly turns into a nightmare the next morning when Gaby demands money for her services (and time). Frazzled, Logan runs to withdraw money only to return to a vacant hotel room. Gaby is gone, and she took the watch! Oh no!
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The complications and stakes of “Sundown” proceed to escalate. Soon a local gangster gets involved, then some shoot-outs, some cock fighting, and drugs. With the help of Chewy (Silverio Palacios), a scheming local cabdriver, Logan and Blake attempt to retrieve the watch through all this madness.
The plot — contrived, fantastical yet bland — begins to fade by about minute 15. It’s a movie that feels like it was made by a 13-year-old boy who, understandably, has a myopic understanding of people, places, and things. I’m not sure who anyone is or is supposed to be in this travesty, but they definitely don’t resemble any human beings I know.
Werkheiser and Marquette are not entirely without talent, but the screenwriting, by director Fernando Lebrija and co-writer Miguel Tejada-Flores, is consistently repugnant. Their conversations are one-note: incomprehensible. The dialogue Logan and Blake exchange come off as what someone older believes teenagers sound like in the 21st century. When they’re not talking about how “hot” that girl is or how “f–ked” they are in this predicament, the two fight, then makeup, then fight again. How these two people are friends is the second greatest mystery in “Sundown,” right next to how this film got made in the first place.
All of this thundering drivel pulsates to the sonically assaultive sounds of house music. For those unfamiliar, house is a genre of music typically enjoyed while under the influence of some drug in a large group setting. Perhaps watching “Sundown” with a group of people — rather than an isolated experience — would elicit a different response. The music will still probably be unlistenable, but at least you and your friends could collectively laugh at (not with) these characters as they stumble around aimlessly in one of 2016 worst films.