Priyanka Chopra Jonas Is a Convincing, Swashbuckling John Wick in Pirate-Set Motion

Priyanka Chopra Jonas is the pirate model of John Wick in Frank E. Flowers’ The BluffAmazon’s newest straight-to-streaming motion flick. That is mainly all that you must know. Throw in The Boys‘ Karl City as a tobacco-chewing captain who solely speaks in moody platitudes, a stunning Cayman island, and scores of buccaneers being blasted by makeshift bombs and barrel shotguns, and you have got your self an actual barn-burning good time.

The Bluff is a rollicking throwback to the swashbuckling motion of outdated. It’s brutal and creative sufficient to clean over its spinoff narrative. The script, by Flowers and Joe Ballarini, is generally bare-bones, with an considerable effectivity, rapidly changing into a ninety-minute showcase for terribly tense, bloody struggle choreography from Marvel stalwarts Tara Macken and Kyle Gardiner (the Russo brothers function government producers).

The Bluff Locations Its Revenge Narrative Contained in the Brutal World of Put up-Colonial Piracy

Jonas performs Ercell, a younger mom attempting to reside a peaceable life on the emancipated Cayman Brac, a bit slice of heaven, in 1846. The world of rampant buccaneering has all however disappeared, with the remaining pirates, supposedly, extra ruthless than anybody who has come earlier than. It has been a minute since Ercell has seen her husband, T.H. (Ismael Cruz Cordova), who has been gone for 59 days at sea, or so goes the depend by her disabled son, Isaac (Vedanten Naidoo), who places himself to sleep by studying a guide of pirate tales.

The 2 reside in concord alongside T.H.’s youthful sister, Elizabeth (Safia Oakley-Inexperienced) in a captivating, colourful shack by the small, native village, till a fleet of troopers arrives on shore. Two of their members assault Ercell in her kitchen within the first of many claustrophobic, electrical fights, and struggle out in a short time that that is no abnormal housewife.

The pirates are led by Captain Connor (City), a steely-eyed relic who’s searching down Ercell on suspicion that the lady previously referred to as Bloody Mary has decamped right here with gold and different buried treasure. Like Wick, like No personlike all fill-in-the-blank Jason Statham character from the final decade, Ercell should shed the costume of suburban normalcy to disclose the highly-skilled mercenary she actually is. Apart from its interval specifics and its placement on a post-colonial Cayman island, its set-up is frustratingly standard.

Regardless, it’s what it’s, and Ercell places her household on her again in a chase by way of the forestry to get to the titular bluff, a perch atop a hidden cave the place all of the treasure has sat, untouched, for years. Components of this sequence are harking back to Predatorwith the pursued changing into the pursuant, and like Die Laborious in Ercell’s dogged willpower to struggle with Rube Goldberg machines and McGuyver-like improvised contraptions.

The Bluff may put on quite a lot of its influences on its sleeve, however it’s actually its personal factor regardless. A number of of the struggle scenes are among the most kinetically satisfying within the style’s latest reminiscence. Cayman Brac is understood for its plethora of caves and tunnels, and Flowers has a enjoyable time using the panorama’s pure labyrinth for violently balletic motion sequences. One scene particularly is tensely lit and shot by Greg Baldi solely by way of the momentary flashes of gunfire.

A part of what makes The Bluff work so nicely when it does is its fascinating setting. Cayman Brac (which suggests bluff in Gaelic) is a playground of golden vistas, hidden corners and large bushes, making the small stretch of land really feel like a real-life laser tag space. Flowers, who has shot on the Cayman’s earlier than (Haven was the primary characteristic to be shot totally there), intimately is aware of methods to maximalize the world that Ercell has constructed a house on.

Jonas is a power as Ercell. She’s susceptible and deeply human when her world is being threatened but highly effective and guttural in response. She appears a pure for the sort of sword and gun-fu that Macken and Gardiner throw her means, and performs nicely off of City’s cooler, calmer, extra sadistic Connor.

Because the movie goes on, Flowers and Ballarini’s screenplay reveals its deeper messaging on how colonial violence bleeds into the folks it terrorizes, inevitably perpetuating a cycle of bloodshed. As a reinvention of the Wick mythos, The Bluff is adventurous and shocking, with simply sufficient innovation to search out its personal treasure.

The Bluff releases on Prime Video on February twenty fifth, 2026.