Pierce Brosnan as Max Burdett in After the Sunset (2004)
Vitals
Pierce Brosnan as Max Burdett, retired(?) jewel thief
The Bahamas, Summer 2004
Film: After the Sunset
Release Date: November 12, 2004
Director: Brett Ratner
Costume Designer: Rita Ryack
Pierce Brosnan’s Costumer: Edward T. Hanley
Background
This summer Car Week focus begins on the 00-7th of July by focusing not on Mr. Bond himself but rather one of Pierce Brosnan’s first prominent movies after hanging up 007’s shoulder holster and tuxedo.
Indeed, Max Burdett’s lifestyle in After the Sunset shares some similarities with how we’ve been presented with James Bond’s retirement: a rugged yet swanky seaside home in the Caribbean with a sweet ride and a stashed handgun to greet unwanted visitors.
Months after retiring to Paradise Island in the Bahamas, master thief Max is getting a few too many of said visitors, first in the form of his erstwhile nemesis, FBI agent Stan Lloyd (Woody Harrelson), and then emissaries of local gangster Henri Mooré (Don Cheadle), who wants Max to steal a prized diamond from a docked cruise ship for him—the proverbial “one last job”.
Between evading Stan, keeping ahead of Henri, and trying to manage the very reasonable expectations of his girlfriend Lola (Salma Hayek), Max’s retirement to paradise is shaping up to be more work than his career had been. Lola finally kicks Max out after discovering he had lied about writing their wedding vows and still being uncertainly about whether he wants to steal the diamond, so—with nowhere else to go—he makes nice with his drunken frenemy Stan by tucking him into bed where, with nowhere else to go, he eventually joins him… but not without a word of warning to another friend: “You tell anyone I tucked him in, I’ll kill ya.”
What’d He Wear?
Max embraces elevated beach bum style in retirement, pulling from a closet of breezy linen shirts, shorts, and pants. Blue is one of the most predominant colors among Max’s linen shirts, including the light-blue popover shirt he wears for the rigorous day that ends with his platonically sharing Stan’s bed with him.
Panareha succinctly defines the popover shirt as “a polo shirt made with dress shirt fabric,” which may be an over-simplification but serves general purposes. Characterized by longer plackets than seen on polo shirts, popover shirts are typically structured with a looser cut that allows the shirt to be more easily popped over the head. Especially when made from linen like Max’s light-blue shirt, this creates a relaxed look very appropriate for the beach, though preppier fabrics like oxford cloth cotton have also made the popover shirt an Ivy style staple.
Max’s light-blue linen popover shirt has a spread collar, a four-button placket that extends down to mid-chest, and long sleeves left plain at each cuff—often rolled up to Max’s elbows.
This Bond actor looks considerably less formal at the Junkanoo than Sean Connery had in his tailored suit and tie nearly 40 years earlier in Thunderball.
Photos developed from my myriad of disposable cameras in middle school often remind me that cargo pants reigned supreme through the early 2000s. This trend even made its way to the Bahamas where Max Burdett sports a pair of off-white linen flat-front trousers detailed with curved-entry side pockets and a bellows-style cargo pocket on each thigh, covered with two-button rectangular flap.
Consistent with his adopted lifestyle as a laidback beach-dweller, Max wears dark-brown leather “flip-flop” sandals. As a relatively simple footwear, rudimentary versions of flip-flops had been worn for millennia, though the modern flip-flop—so-named for the sound made by the wearer’s foot against the flat soles—has grown in popularity since the 1960s.
Max’s Caribbean wardrobe would be incomplete without sunglasses. His aviator sunglasses have small gold ovular lenses and brushed gold frames with a curved brow bar that follow a narrow silhouette, consistent with Y2K-era eyewear. These are likely Brosnan’s own Oliver Peoples Aero sunglasses, the same model he wore as a disguised James Bond in the first act of his final 007 movie, Die Another Day (2002).
Max often wears the top of his shirts open to show his Maori-style Koru necklace, consisting of a 1.5″-wide carved bone fern frond—said to represent new life or new beginnings—on a braided, waxed cord. (A “Brosnan Koru” reproduction is available via Amazon.)
In contrast to the beachy vibes of his Koru necklace, Max wears a Panerai Luminor Marina watch, which Panerai Magazine specifically identified as the PAM00091 reference. This hardy automatic watch has a hefty 44mm-wide titanium case with a curved crown guard, worn on a stainless steel three-piece link bracelet. The dark-blue anthracite dial has luminous hour indices, non-numerical except for the numbered 12 and 6 o’clock indicators, as well as a date window at 3 o’clock and the Marina’s signature second-counting sub-register at 9 o’clock.
On his right hand, Max wears a silver ring with a black-filled etching.
The Car
Max motors through Paradise Island in a dark “dusk blue” 1969 Chevrolet Camaro SS convertible—or, more specifically, a base-model ’69 convertible rebadged to resemble a Camaro with the Super Sport (SS) package that Chevy had used to distinguish its high-performance models since it was introduced for the ’61 Impala.
Chevrolet introduced the Camaro in the fall of 1966, launching GM’s new F-body platform that would soon be shared with the cosmetically similar Pontiac Firebird. GM intended the Camaro and Firebird to challenge the Ford Mustang’s supremacy in the relatively new “pony car” market, characterized as compact alternatives to the growing muscle car segment, blending sleek European-influenced style and all-American power with a range of trim and engine options that would appeal across multiple budgets.
Designed by Henry Haga, the “first-generation” Camaro expanded from eight different engines in its introductory 1967 model year to a whopping 12 in 1969, by which time the sheet metal had been redesigned for a new look distinctive to the ’69 Camaro only. In addition to the base model, first-generation Camaros were available in the Rally Sport (RS), SS, and Z/28 packages, with the SS and Z/28 offering increased performance while the RS was primarily an appearance package.
From 1967 through the 1969 model year, the Camaro SS could be powered by either the 350 cubic-inch or 396 cubic-inch V8 engine. Even with only two engines to choose from, there were still over a dozen stock configurations that drivers could choose based on transmission and power; the two 350 V8 engines produced 300 and 325 horsepower and could be mated to a three-speed manual, four-speed manual, two-speed Powerglide automatic, or three-speed HydraMatic automatic transmission while the two 396 V8 engines produced 350 and 375 horsepower and lacked the Powerglide transmission.
Just under 35,000 of the 243,085 new Camaros sold during the 1969 model year were produced with the SS package, though the After the Sunset team reportedly sourced two of the 150,078 base models that were then converted to resemble the Camaro SS.
A user at the Pro-Touring.com forum suggested that the team wanted to purchase Bob Spears’ black-striped red ’69 Camaro SS after it featured on the November 2003 cover of Popular Hot Rodding magazine, but they wanted to paint it blue for the production. Rather than a stock 350 or 396 V8 from the late ’60s, I believe Bob’s Camaro featured a stroked 350 cubic-inch (5.7L) LT1 V8 produced for the ’94 Camaro. (For the sake of simplicity, the below statistics will operate under the assumption that Max’s Camaro is powered by a stock 350 V8 and three-speed Hydramatic transmission, with specs sourced from Automobile-Catalog.com.)
1969 Chevrolet Camaro SS
Body Style: 2-door convertible
Layout: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive (RWD)
Engine: 350 cubic-inch (5.7 L) Chevrolet small-block V8 with Rochester 4-barrel carburetor
Power: 300 hp (223.5 kW; 304 PS) @ 4800 rpm
Torque: 380 lb·ft (515 N·m) @ 3200 rpm
Transmission: 3-speed GM Hydramatic automatic
Wheelbase: 108 inches (2743 mm)
Length: 186 inches (4724 mm)
Width: 74 inches (1880 mm)
Height: 51 inches (1295 mm)
The Camaro and Firebird underwent a substantial redesign for the 1970 model year, establishing the “second generation” for each car. Both would be continuously produced over four generations until 2002. After Pontiac ended its operations in 2010, Chevy reintroduced its all-new Camaro for the 2010 model year, three years after a prototype for what would be the fifth-generation Camaro appeared in the 2007 film Transformers. Following a facelift for its sixth generation, the Camaro again ended production in December 2023.
How to Get the Look
Pierce Brosnan as Max Burdett in After the Sunset (2004)
<MAX> beach bum style // OLD POST: As you’re planning summer getaways, take inspiration from Max Burdett by dressing simply—I’m talking comfortably broken-in white linen shirt with understated swim trunks simple—while accessorizing distinctively, balancing a beachy necklace with a $6,000 watch.
- Light-blue linen long-sleeved popover shirt with spread collar, 4-button placket, and plain cuffs
- Off-white linen flat-front cargo pants
- Dark-brown leather flip-flops
- Curved bone Maori-style Koru necklace on waxed braided cord
- Gold-framed narrow aviator-style sunglasses with curved brow bar and gold oval lenses
- Oliver Peoples Aero
- Silver etched ring
- Panerai Luminor Marina PAM00091 watch with titanium 44mm case and dark blue anthracite dial with luminous hour markers, 3 o’clock date window, and 9 o’clock second-counting sub-register on stainless steel three-piece link bracelet
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
I’m not good at sunsets.
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