As one of the producers of this film, Priyanka Chopra Jonas is making things happen for her career in Hollywood. After the slick thriller Citadel, she goes back to the action genre, with The Bluff, but this time it’s a period film and she plays a former pirate, whose past comes back to bite her present.
The film directed by Frank E. Flowers, is set in the 1840s Caribbean, where the woman who was once the terror of the high seas and known as Bloody Mary, is now a homemaker, with a slightly disabled son, Isaac (Vedanten Naidoo). She had stabbed a fellow pirate, Connor (Karl Urban) and escaped with his treasure. She married T.H. Bodden (Ismael Cruz Córdova) and lives on the island of Cayman Brac, free from British rule, but under their protection. It is a time when pirates are a dying breed and looking for a way out
When Connor discovers a gold bar with Bodden when they raid his ship, he realizes that Bloody Mary must be alive. He then takes his gang of vicious buccaneers and attacks the island. What he does not realise is that Ercell, as she is now called, has prepared for just such an eventuality, and has lost none of her fighting skills.
She takes her son and sister-in-law, Elizabeth (Safia Oakley-Green), who, till this point, dislikes her, and reaches a hideout she had equipped with weapons and survival tools. Connor and his men don’t know what hit them.
The plot of the film would not even fill half a page. Once the fighting starts, it is non-stop. The dialogue is reduced to banal threats or just grunts and growls. Ercell proves to be a fearless adversary, fiercely protective of her son and husband, who Connor has imprisoned to barter for his gold.
The film does not go into detail, but there are historical crumbs that indicate what was actually going on during the British rule. Connor is angry that once pirates filled the coffers of the British, they were abandoned by their rulers. The pirates in the film are not in the mould of Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp in Pirates Of The Caribbean), but killers and marauders.
Interestingly, Ercell’s past involves being abducted with her family as “indentured servants.” Which means, she is of Indian origin—a smart way of playing an international character, but with Indian roots. She plays Ercell/Mary with ferocity, yet bringing a kind of balletic grace to the action sequences. For a big screen release, the too simple, linear style would look poor in comparison to the big-budget actioners, but in its straight-to-streaming format, it is a satisfying and entertaining watch. Priyanka Chopra Jonas may not yet have made a big enough dent in mainstream Hollywood, but she has certainly prolonged her career in the West.
The Bluff
Directed by: Frank E Flowers
Cast: Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Karl Urban, Ismael Cruz Cordova and others
On Amazon Prime Video
