The Bluff: Movie Review

Cast: Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Karl Urban, Temuera Morrison, Ismael Cruz Cordova

Director: Frank E Flowers

To say The Bluff has had a long time at sea is an understatement.

With a director signed on back in 2021 and a lead change in 2024, the two month shoot has yielded mixed results with a movie that feels like a mix of Pirates Of The Caribbean and a straightforward chase movie.

Jonas is Ercell Bodden, a former pirate who's given up her life on the ocean wave for a quieter one with her husband and their children, setting on an island away from the treachery of pirate life.

But when Captain Connor (an Irish-accented Urban) shows up in her paradise looking for her, Ercell's forced to confront her past and a part of her she'd hoped was long-buried.

It's churlish to suggest there's no sea-legs in this would-be swashbuckler, because for the first 50 minutes of the 1hour 40minute movie, there's scant else. 

However, when the film shifts away from the action, its plot and dialogue begin to show the strain of what lies ahead. From scenes of characters talking that's little more than heavy exposition to very little screen time for anyone other than Chopra Jonas and Urban, the film somehow manages to underwhelm at most points of its execution.

Flowers delivers one decent action sequence amid a mire of formulaic fare. A cave-set hunt crackles as the light of the gunpowder-filled guns crackle through the dark, each bang flashing the fights to life and showing there's some directorial flair to be had.

But alas, it's too little too late.

Jonas delivers the same kind of performance she gave as a gritty fighter in Prime Video's action series Citadel, but there's relatively no depth here for her to mine to excel. Urban teeters on the right side of hamminess for his devilishly dogged captain, but he also has little treasure to offer in the role, thanks to very shallow writing.

A final showdown feels flat and the closing moments hint there could be more to come - but at the end of the day, this pirate-led movie delivers nothing but a boat-load of trouble and sea-riously should have thought more about what it was wanting to do with such a solid premise with such great talent.

The Bluff is streaming on Prime Video from Wednesday, February 25.