Title – The Bluff (2026)

Director – Frank E. Flowers (Haven)

Cast – Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Karl Urban, Temuera Morrison, David Field

Plot – Bloodthirsty pirate Captain Connor (Urban) chases down a large collection of gold that was stolen from him by one-time crew member Ercell (Chopra Jones) on a picturesque but unforgiving island in the Caribbean.

“Your father didn’t marry me for my cooking”

Review by Eddie on 26/03/2026

Frank E. Flowers Amazon original offering The Bluff is a disappointingly bland pirate B-movie that seems to have forgotten what it was/should’ve been as it instead delivers a po-faced experience that forgot to bring the fun and adventure.

Filmed on the sunny shores of QLD Australia, with the Aussie backdrop filling in for the Cayman Islands as the pirate era comes towards its inevitable end in the mid-1800’s, The Bluff has all the makings of a swashbuckling good time, very much in the vein of pirate king Pirates of the Caribbean or films it shares DNA with like National Treasure or Cutthroat Island, but Flower is intent on making his feature one that is aimed squarely at the serious, much to his end products detriment.

A loveless feeling film that tackles everything about its ideals and approach as generically as possible, The Bluff in many ways, shapes and form is the type of care-free direct to streaming release that has killed many a similar film over recent years as any chance it had to become a fun, turn your brain off exercise extinguished early on when we are introduced to Priyanka Chopra Jonas’s Ercell “Bloody Mary” Bodden and Karl Urban’s warring pirate captain Connor, as the two battle it out over stolen gold on the sunny sands of a remote Caribbean island.

A bloodthirsty outing, that must be noted for not taking the PC route to some vicious swashbuckling carnage, The Bluff’s 100-minute runtime is filled mostly with a procession of blood-spattered battles that all take place around a bunch of unmemorable and unlikable characters, with the films ensemble of talented industry veterans unable to do a lot with bare basic material that not even the world’s most charisma filled stars would’ve been able to breathe much life into.

Offering up an increasingly disinteresting and frustrating viewing experience, the worst thing about The Bluff is that there’s the bones of something fun and potentially even special found within and in a world that needs more high sea/pirate themed features, there’s a gap in the market for films of this ilk but Flowers and his comrades were unable to grab hold of their opportunity to provide us with something unquestionably silly but loaded with popcorn entertainment possibilities.

Scoring some notable streaming figures in its first few weeks in the public realm, there’s a demand as there always will be for films that don’t test the brain matter but The Bluff is an unoriginal and bland feature film experience that will be buried by the sands of time in a matter a months.

Final Say –

The world deserves more top-class pirate themed features that sadly The Bluff is not. With a generic approach to proceedings and a cast that is anchored down by poor writing and directing, The Bluff’s chances to become a surprise 2026 streaming surprise are never realised.

2 Oak drinkers out of 5