The Bluff
                                                                                      
Director: Frank Flowers
Year: 2026
Rating: 6.5
Always good to see Priyanka Chopra in something new even if she isn't dancing. Instead she is using her graceful moves to kill an entire pirate crew with various weapons. I miss her in Bollywood films though she still dabbles in them at times. But the money in Hollywood is much better and of course she is married to Nick Jonas who is famous for something, but I have no clue what. I can't think of any other Bollywood star who has been this successful in Hollywood. Are pirates big again? It seems like an odd choice to set this female action film back in the 1800s on a small island with a crew of pirates looking for gold. Of course, that gives it a different look and feel than most of the female action films these days and certainly forces the action to be up close and personal. Swords, daggers, garrotes and muskets.



Pirate Captain Connor (Karl Urban) captures a ship in which he discovers a few bars of gold that was stolen from him years before by his female partner, Bloody Mary. Not a drink, but a murderous ex slave who became a pirate. He tracks the gold to the small community of Cayman Brac (a real island though the film was shot in Australia). They are looking for the wife of the captain they captured. A fishwife as one pirate describes her.



Ercell (Priyanka) is living a peaceful life taking care of her crippled son and her husband's sister. Two pirates come looking for her. She kills them in a vicious fight and then leads the rest of the crew through the jungle and crocodiles to a secret lair and the Bluff. Killing the pirates as she goes. She is like a Delta Force commando. I am a long-time sucker for these sorts of films. Never get tired of them no matter how farfetched they might be. This one is I suppose but no more than most action films. It only falters really in the final action set piece when the remaining pirates enter her lair. It felt like the director just wanted to get it over with at that point while I wanted some more imaginative kills. And a dance of course.