The Bluff, 2026.
Directed by Frank E. Flowers.
Starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Karl Urban, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Safia Oakley-Green, Pacharo Mzembe, Greg Hatton, Gideon Mzembe, Temuera Morrison, Angela Russo-Otstot, Vedanten Naidoo, Zack Morris, David Field, Ronnie James Hughes, Max McVeigh, Harry Reid, and Liam Bunting.
SYNOPSIS:
A Caribbean woman gets her secret past revealed when her island is invaded by vicious buccaneers.
It’s too coincidental not to feel intentional that co-writer/director Frank E. Flowers’ mid-19th century swashbuckling (near the death of such times) action flick The Bluff literally uses the phrasing “Pirates of the Caribbean” in its era-establishing opening text, given that, here, pirates are the villains and not the usual quirky heroic adventurers. Subversive to an extent, these pirates, led by Captain Connor (Karl Urban), want their marked gold bars back, but are far less romanticized here, depicted as essentially slaveowners and colonizers.
Alas, this is also a film produced by the Russo brothers, meaning it doesn’t lean too far into racial politics or subversion, eventually falling back on several clichés of the family-protector action genre. That’s also not to lay the blame entirely on them, as screenwriters Flowers and Joe Ballarini have seemingly set out to make something crowdpleasing with a slightly unique narrative inverse.
With Captain Connor’s coming into contact with T.H. Bodden’s (Ismael Cruz Cordova) sailing crew and discovering some of those previously mentioned marked gold bars, the pirates take him hostage while forcing the location of the stolen treasure, leading them to a Cayman Island (the film also benefits from its atmosphere and some on-location shooting). This leads to a brutal siege of the island’s upstanding inhabitants, placing Ercell Bodden (Priyanka Chopra Jonas, bringing more than enough hard-hitting physicality and rage to the performance to make it worth watching simply for that) and the rest of the family in danger.
However, during a home invasion, it also becomes clear that Ercell is more than a mere housewife, as she picks her moment to fight back with the fight choreographers making efficient use of every piece of furniture and the general space, not to mention a wide array of attack methods from hand-to-hand fighting to knives to antiquated firearms. Throughout this, a secondary battle is waging outside, with inhabitants doing what they can to stave off invaders from the front lines with a cannon. When The Bluff is operating strictly as an action flick less concerned with plot details other than “evil mostly white pirates attacking a Cayman island “, it’s sufficient fun that is visceral and impactful enough despite a lack of blood for the most part (this could have got away with a PG-13 rating aside from one bit that sees Ercell’s home clothes covered in blood).
Following that, the filmmakers start to pull back their trust in the audience, taking things in a heavily expository direction, complete with flashbacks to explain Ercell’s past life, which, in turn, provides context as to why she insists to her sister-in-law and son that the pirates they read about in books are wrongfully glorified and nothing like the real world. The film is further bogged down by getting into the past dynamic between Ercell and Captain Connor, showing that he is obsessed with more than lost treasure
That’s also not to say the action disappears entirely (there is also a nice variety of environments ranging from jungles to caves to the titular bluff), but that The Bluff falls into an overly familiar narrative routine, the type that runs rampant across streaming services. This time, that is saved by some on-location shooting (which is not to say that the experience is wholly free from some occasional fake-looking CGI backgrounds), an impressively physical turn from rising action star Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and an epic-scale, if still familiar score from blockbuster veteran Henry Jackman. It’s a shame that everything else is mostly nondescript without any interest in delving into the aspects that could have made the film stand out. The Bluff is otherwise a worthy action vehicle for Priyanka Chopra Jonas, who will hopefully continue to thrive and excel in the genre.
Flickering Myth Rating– Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
