Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Karl Urban clash in this brutal pirate action movie

Plot: As her tranquil life is shattered by the return of her vengeful former captain, a skilled ex-pirate must confront her bloody past to save her family.

Review: Aside from streaming platforms debuting big-screen-caliber movies during the pandemic, the quality of many original films premiering on the small screen has been hit-or-miss. With the quality of television and feature films blurring over the last decade, we often judge streaming films as lower in quality than the movies that make it to multiplexes. For every terrible waste of film that shows up on Netflix, HBO Max, or Prime Video, there are some that sneak through and are a welcome surprise. The Bluff is one of those surprises. Blending the intense, brutal action of movies like John Wick and Extraction, The Bluff is a 19th-century-set pirate movie that redefines the swashbuckler genre with a home-invasion twist. Led by Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Karl Urban, The Bluff is a summer blockbuster debuting on Prime Video right when we needed a kick ass action flick.

The Bluff opens with T.H. Bodden (Ismael Cruz Cordova) and his ship of pirates being taken by rival Captain Connor (Karl Urban), with whom Bodden shares a history. Wanting to reclaim his rightful property, Connor travels with his crew to Cayman Brac, where Ercell Bodden (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) lives with her family in peace. The isolated community knows of Ercell’s past but protects her as they await the return of T.H. Ercell lives with her sister-in-law, Elizabeth (Safia Oakley-Green), and Ercell’s son, Isaac (Vedanten Naidoo), who needs medical care. When Connor arrives at the island, his men seek to capture Ercell, whom Connor knows by her pirate name of Bloody Mary. As seen in the trailers, the mild-mannered Ercell tries to appease the pirates until they discover and threaten her son, which sends her into mama bear mode, and she takes them all down with brutal and bloody violence. Knowing that it is only a matter of time before Connor finds her, Ercell begins to plot an escape for her family and an attempt to rescue her husband.

At just about an hour and forty minutes, The Bluff starts fast and keeps the momentum at a high pace until the end credits roll. There is little fat on this lean movie, which careens from action sequence to action sequence with bloody, bloody violence on full display. From people catching cannonballs in the torso to blades cutting through sinew and flesh, this movie pulls no punches in delivering brutal action. But where some movies sacrifice storytelling for stuntwork, The Bluff keeps the focus on our hero and on fleshing out how she became a pirate, while defending her family without detouring from the main storyline. Priyanka Chopra Jonas has a long resume of action-heavy projects, having starred in the series Quantico and Citadel, the latter produced by The Russo Brothers, as well as recent films like Heads of State. She also has extensive experience in Bollywood, having done impressive action work for years before that. Here, the actress channels great action heroines like Geena Davis in The Long Kiss Goodnight and Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde, getting right in the mix with rival pirates regardless of their physical stature or presence. Priyanka handles the dramatic moments here wonderfully, but she easily ranks as one of the most badass heroes on screen in recent memory.

The film boasts a mix of supporting players who do not get nearly as much screen time as the main stars, with Temuera Morrison’s quartermaster Lee appearing in a handful of sequences, along with various island residents and pirates. Safia Oakley-Green and Vedanten Naidoo get to do the most outside of Priyanka and Urban, but the focus is squarely on the two most recognizable actors in the cast. For every bit the badass that Priyanka plays here, Karl Urban is a solid match and a memorable villain. Urban has played many characters in his career, most of them heroic or, at worst, morally ambiguous antiheroes. Connor is one of the few purely villainous performances from the star of The Boys and Star Trek, and he digs into the swagger and attitude of playing a pirate. The history shared between Connor and Ercell shapes the dynamic between the two performers, who square off in a memorable final fight after spending most of the film off-screen. When they do come together in the final act, it is more than worth the wait, but Karl Urban makes great use of playing Connor as a memorable antagonist and foil to everyone in his path.

Co-writing with Joe Ballarini, director Frank E. Flowers (Haven) imbues The Bluff with elements from his own Caribbean upbringing and an authentic casting that echoes what real pirate crews would have looked like. The story also provides context for how Ercell’s journey took her from innocence to criminality and then onto a path towards redemption and happiness. The Bluff is also built on being more than the stereotypes we often associate with the genre, with no complex treasure maps or silly supernatural elements. This is a brutal and hyper-realistic action movie that blends the best elements of action flicks with a fresh perspective on a setting we don’t see very often on screen anymore. Flowers does a great job of blending tropical locations with intricate sets that limit the use of green screen and rely almost entirely on practical effects and stuntwork. Because of that, the movie has a more tangible, authentic feel that also heightens each hit, slash, and cut we see on screen. Couple that with Henry Jackman’s score and the cinematography of Greg Baldi, and The Bluff is the best big-screen experience to debut on the small screen.

With the Russo Brothers producing the Extraction films and 87North serving as the benchmark for modern action movies, Frank E. Flowers’ The Bluff is a fantastic example of applying contemporary style and technology to a bygone genre. I had more fun with this lean and brutal action movie than I have with most action movies over the last year. I would have loved to have seen The Bluff get a wide release in theaters, as it is the type of rousing movie that is fun to watch in a full theater. Pirate movies have been the domain of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise for the last twenty years but The Bluff is just the type of movie to show audiences how much the genre still has going for it. Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Karl Urban are fantastic adversaries and give this movie the badass energy that crackles with every sword clash and flintlock fired. This movie takes the conceits and storyline we have seen in films before and gives them a nice edge that keeps you glued to the screen to the very end.

The Bluff premieres on February 25th on Prime Video.

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