Behind Chopra's winning lead performance and a novel take on period action, The Bluff easily overcomes its limitations.
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As much as the Disney Pirates franchise has more or less petered out (at least domestically), they always had the general idea for mass appeal to pirate adventure. Sand down the rough edges of piracy. Make the violence PG-13 at best, lean in on the fun ways we assumed pirates talked, and ignore some of the other words we might associate with the term "pillage." Which also leaves the door open for a more brutal type of pirate adventure. One that today's movie The Bluff is happy to provide.
The Setup
The film follows Ercell Bodden, a wife and mother enjoying a quiet life in the Caymans with her son, her sister-in-law and her husband. But when her husband is taken captive and her quiet town is attacked, Ercell will have to tap into a life and lethal skill set she left behind to survive...
The premise and appeal of this movie is pretty straight-forward. If you want a period revenge action movie featuring a bunch of bloody hand to hand combat and old-timey gun play, you're in luck. This movie has that by the boat loads (pun definitely intended).
The hook here, as you might've suss'ed out, is that Ercell isn't just some random pirate who turned away from the life, she's actually a legendary pirate famed for her combat skills, and now her former captain and crew are coming to collect what they believe belongs to them.
It's a twist on the John Wick formula that's entertaining, even if it's not terribly deep. So first things first, let's highlight what this movie does well.
Priyanka Chopra
I'm well aware that Chopra is an experienced actor whose done action roles before. Hell she's done action roles produced by the Russos before. But this was my introduction to her as an action performer and I gotta say, she's a natural action star.
Part of it is the commitment to the more physical aspects of the action scenes that are almost entirely constructed from close-quarters combat with Chopra and the stunt team showing off some wild bits of acrobatic insanity into brutality.
The other stuff is coming across as the mix of confident and vulnerable. So being confident enough to deliver a savage one-liner or two, but also being vulnerable enough to make each hit feel like it really hurts or every setback and sacrifice carries weight is important as well.
The script could offer her more chances to branch this character out, which we'll get into, but I'd love more like this from Chopra.
A Darker Take on the Pirate Tale
This is the first pirate-related movie I've seen in forever that really leans into how horrifying pirates would be to the general population. They arrive. They cut through your able bodied men seemingly with ease. And even if they stop threats of additional violence linger over everyone.
The film also alludes to the brutality that Ercell had to commit simply to survive as a pirate, and exactly why she would want to leave that life behind.
The film also alludes to the brutality that Ercell had to commit simply to survive as a pirate, and exactly why she would want to leave that life behind.
Most of this is filtered through our villain Karl Urban, who drips malice from the moment he appears on screen and does a snuff type drug before every bout with little to no regard for the lives in his wake. It's a nice change of pace.
Pretty Good R-Rated Action
Almost all practical first R-rated action feels pretty John Wick inspired nowadays. Feature a blend of mixed martial arts and gunplay and a few novel kills and weapons and you've got yourself the bones to work with. Which is semi-novel with a woman as our lead as she uses a lot of acrobatic takedowns to thin the herd she's fighting against.
There was even on practical bit of stunt work done early on that got a legit "holy shit" from me.
And for the sake of variety, the movie is constantly moving between different locations and shifting the emphasis between stealth fighting, full melee brawls and firefights.
Now we get to some missed opportunities.
It's All...On Land
My guess is that this is primarily a budget limitation, but it is a slight bummer that this pirate movie only features about 2-3 scenes, half of which are flashbacks on sea. I get why, this is meant to be a hunt movie versus a hunt on the open seas kind of movie, but it definitely feels like we're at the limit of the location by the movie's end.
More Background Needed
Something I think that people forget about the original John Wick movie, is how integral the first portion of the movie is. The audience needs to bond with the puppy and John to care about them before the brutality happens and John starts his revenge rampage.
And considering how rough Ercell's backstory is, you'd expect that this would be a defining aspect of her character even before Karl Urban's villain shows up. We also get little to no sense of what day to day life with Ercell and her husband is like. So much so that once he is brought into the picture he feels like a trophy who fires off one-liners versus an honest to goodness character.
And considering how rough Ercell's backstory is, you'd expect that this would be a defining aspect of her character even before Karl Urban's villain shows up. We also get little to no sense of what day to day life with Ercell and her husband is like. So much so that once he is brought into the picture he feels like a trophy who fires off one-liners versus an honest to goodness character.
Choppy Editing
This movie is at its best when it takes time to show off all of the cool stunt work everyone is doing. The movie is at its worst when it leans into its producer's editing style which is high impact...but also really hard to follow.
It's not all of the time, but a number of high leverage moments and scenes are both so dimly lit and so choppily edited that it's hard to piece together who's cutting who and how. There were at least three moments where I was certain Chopra had taken a potential grievous wound only to find out I guess she was the one who was dishing out the punishment.
The Verdict: Fun, If Limited
Behind Chopra's winning lead performance and a novel take on period action, The Bluff easily overcomes its limitations. 7/10
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