In 1920s Hollywood, famed comedian Alfie Alperin (Malcolm McDowell) has made the transition from screen stardom to working behind the scenes as a producer and studio head.  With the coming of the talkies and the death of silent cinema, Alfie plans to make his mark with an epic western starring Tom Mix (Bruce Willis) as Wyatt Earp.  The real Wyatt (James Garner) is hired to act as an on-set consultant.  Wyatt’s former girlfriend, Christina (Patricia Hodge), is now married to Alfie.

What Mix and Earp discover is that, despite his beloved public image, Alfie is actually a monster who is involved with organized crime and sex trafficking and who has the police on his payroll.  While searching for Christina’s missing son (Dermot Mulroney), Mix and Earp get caught up in a murder involving Alife’s sister (Jennifer Edwards) and a gangster named Dutch (Joe Dallesandro).  At the first Academy Awards are handed out in Beverly Hills, Tom Mix and Wyatt Earp prepare for the final showdown with their producer.

The idea behind Sunset was promising.  Wyatt Earp, a real cowboy who survived the end of the West, teams up with Tom Mix, a movie cowboy who is trying to survive the end of the silent era.  (Earp and Mix were friend in real life, as well.)  Bruce Willis comes across as being too contemporary in the role of Tom Mix but James Garner plays Wyatt Earp with a weary dignity and Malcolm McDowell does a convincing Charlie Chaplin impersonation.  Unfortunately, Blake Edwards’s direction allows the story to meander and the mystery itself is so full of red herrings that it’s impossible to follow.  Edwards didn’t seem to know if he wanted this movie to be a buddy comedy, an elegiac tribute to the end of the silent era, or a satire of Hollywood.  He tried to include elements of all three but the movie itself just doesn’t come together.  Only Garner and McDowell emerge from the film relatively unscathed.

Fortunately, for Bruce Willis, Die Hard was released just two months after Sunset.