The Bluff - A Pretty Entertaining Swashbuckler Action Movie

I was not aware that this movie was released on Wednesday in Prime Video till the following day when I was looking at new release on streaming platforms. Without hesitation, I immediately watched it last night as it was the kind of film that interest me. OK, let's just get on with it then.

Brief Story Line

Set in the 19th century where some pirates were still roaming the Carribbean sea, a merchant ship with its Captain T. H. Bodden (Ismael Cruz Cordova - The Pickup, Berlin Station TV series etc) were attacked by pirate ship led by notorious Captain Connor (Karl Urban - The Boys TV series, Star Trek: Beyond etc) along with Quartermaster Lee (Temuera Morrison - The Wrecking Crew, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom etc). Connor decided to find Bodden's home after finding something that he had been searching for years.

Meanwhile in the small island of Cayman Brac, Ercell (Priyanka Chopra Jonas - Heads of State, Quantico TV series etc) was waiting for her husband Bodden to return from his voyage. Her son Isaac (Vedanten Naidoo) was getting anxious as his father promised to return on his birthday while Ercell's sister in-law Elizabeth (Safia Oakley-Green - Out of Darkness etc) was planning to run away with her boyfriend. Unfortunately their peaceful lives were ruined when Connor arrived with his crews and start attacking the island to capture Ercell and the things they were looking for. Ercell had no choice but to use her skills to protect and save her family.

So what would happen to Ercell? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Well that was exactly what I was expecting, a movie filled with old fashioned kind of action where they used fists, swords, guns & rifles and plenty of explosives. It was not a CGI heavy film except during the early ship battle scenes and a little bit here and there. And it was also made entertaining with the amazing dedication of Priyanka Chopra Jonas in doing the action scenes mostly by herself (which she nailed it by the way). The action scenes were brutal with lots of blood and body parts exploded (no wonder it was R rated) and should satisfy those looking for this kind of violent action.

Now in term of story, it has a very simple plot and not complicated at all. But this simplicity is what made the film entertaining for me as there was no need to overthink and just enjoy myself. However, since a lot of scenes happened at night, it would have been better if the brightness was increased a bit cause sometimes I could not see them clearly even after changing my TV's setting (although I could understand the intention during the cave scenes). For a movie with 101 minutes including closing credit (without any mid or post end credit scene), it was quite satisfying as the action was plenty.  

To my surprise, critics were quite impressed with the film and its rating was pretty decent compared to other action movies. It seemed to be popular too in Prime Video, making it to the Top 10 of the global chart including now number 1 in Indonesia. The movie itself was directed by Frank E. Flowers (director of Haven, writer of Bob Marley: One Love etc) and written by him together with Joe Ballarini (A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting etc). Aside from the cast I mentioned above, there were appearances of David Field (City Homicide TV series etc) as Pastor Bradley, Gary Beadle (A Good Girl's Guide to Murder TV series etc) as Custode Drayton, Greg Hatton (Home and Away TV series etc) as one of Connor's scout and several others in minor capacity.

I thought the decision to release this in streaming platform was a good one cause I am not sure if it would be a major box office success. I do not have info on how big the budget was, but it's probably quite enormous especially if rumors were true about the high salary of its cast and would be even bigger with marketing cost. But then again you never know cause Hollywood pirates movies had been very rare in the past decade since that last Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge. In the end this was an entertaining swashbuckler action movie with dedicated performance by Priyanka Chopra Jonas with her equally fantastic co-star Karl Urban and full of interesting action sequence. You can think of it as a little bit of Die Hard in an island. I myself did enjoy this one, though I might like it better if its ending was a little different. So if you are looking for such film, then this one should be pretty satisfying. But if you wish for a lighter and fun kind of pirates adventure movies, then this might not be to your liking. The choice is yours. 

Mike's movie moment rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars