Movie Review: The Bluff

In terms of movie monopolies, few have even been as dominant as the one Pirates of the Caribbean has had on pirate movies over the last 20+ years. Gore Verbinski's original trilogy that ran from 2003 to 2007 were such rollicking, well-conceived high seas adventures that other creatives in the industry figured they were better off staying on land. The two entries that weren't helmed by Verbinski that were released during the 2010's (2011's On Stranger Tides, 2017's Dead Men Tell No Tales) proved that the brand had run its course and perhaps it was time for somebody else to try their hand at big budget swashbuckling. Nearly nine years after the release of the last Pirates of the Caribbean film, veteran screenwriter Frank E. Flowers has dared to launch a vessel into these rarely explored waters with Prime Video's The Bluff.

To be clear, The Bluff is more of an action/revenge movie about pirates than a full-bore pirate movie as most of it is set on the island of Cayman Brac during the late 1800's when the practice of piracy was on its last legs. As disappointing as it is to see the return to this largely dormant genre be so light on ocean-based action, The Bluff has enough firepower in its arsenal to overcome its relative lack of aquatic hijinks. Priyanka Chopra as a retired lethal pirate whose settled into a quiet life on a beautiful island vs. Karl Urban as her sadistic former partner who kidnaps her husband (Ismael Cruz Cordova) at sea hen forces him to sail to Cayman Brac in order to reclaim the considerable amount of gold she took from him a couple of decades earlier when she made her escape is a fun combative dynamic and the well-staged action sequences pack a brutal punch that nicely correlates with the nastiness of its revenge narrative. When the movie shifts focus to the dramatic elements involving Chopra's relationship with her son (Vedanten Nadoo) and sister-in-law (Safia Oakley-Green), the clunkiness of the script really starts to show, and it loses momentum. Fortunately, every time it threatens to really start dragging, there's a bloody fight scene or fiery exchange between Chopra and Urban that jolts it back to life. It won't be overly difficult to make a better pirate movie than The Bluff and hopefully somebody will in the near future, but for now, I'm just glad that somebody was willing to make one post-POTC and it ended up being pretty decent.

Grade: B-