The Bluff Tried to Be a Gritty Pirates Movie, but Ended Up a Mess

Priyanka Chopra deserves better than this

I saw a reel about The Bluff on Instagram and thought, “Huh, Priyanka Chopra and Karl Urban in a pirate movie? That’s an interesting pairing.”

I like Priyanka’s work, so I figured I’d give it a shot on Prime Video. But I got a cheap-looking action film that desperately wants to be Pirates of the Caribbean. Unfortunately, it got all the fun sucked out and replaced with unnecessary gore.

TMJ Rating: 🍿/5

What You Need to Know About The Bluff

Priyanka plays Urscel, aka Bloody Mary, an ex-pirate living a quiet life in the Cayman Islands with her husband and son. Her former captain, Connor (Karl Urban), shows up with his crew looking for stolen gold, destroys everything, and she’s forced back into her violent past to protect her family and rescue her kidnapped husband.

It’s basically “former badass is forced to reactivate her badass mode”, which we’ve seen at least a million times.

Where It Falls Apart

The production looks cheap as hell. The costumes look brand new, barely worn, like they just came out of a store.

Everyone looks too clean, too modern. Their haircuts don’t fit the time period. The makeup department clearly didn’t get the memo that these are supposed to be dirty pirates living rough lives. Compare this to Pirates of the Caribbean, where everyone looks like they belong in that world, and the difference is staggering.

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You can see the green screens constantly. The Caribbean sky looks fake and orangey in a way that just screams low-budget streaming film. They filmed this in Australia, trying to pass it off as the Caribbean, and it shows.

Karl Urban keeps switching between what I think is supposed to be an Irish accent and his natural New Zealand accent slipping through. It’s distracting as hell. Temuera Morrison shows up basically playing Boba Fett again, which was funny, but also felt lazy.

The Action Doesn’t Make Sense

The fight choreography is ridiculous. Characters get their heads bashed against walls repeatedly, and somehow they’re fine. The weapons technology makes no sense for a movie set in 1850. There’s a guy with a sniper hitting headshots from 500 meters away on a rocking boat in the ocean.

Karl Urban shoots like 20 rounds from one pistol without reloading.

The violence feels gratuitous without adding anything meaningful. Yeah, it’s R-rated and brutal, but slapping gore on top of a weak script doesn’t make it better. Some of it has shock value, but most of the time, I was sitting there like “okay, and?” It doesn’t paper over the fact that the core story is underdeveloped.

The editing during fight scenes is choppy with too many rapid cuts, especially in low-lit environments. Half the time, you can’t tell what’s happening.

The Story is paper-thin

The whole movie centers on Karl Urban’s character being upset that Priyanka betrayed him in the past, but they barely explore what that betrayal involved. There’s something about him working for the East India Trading Company and being betrayed by the British Empire and by his partner, but it’s so underdeveloped that I honestly wasn’t sure if I caught his full backstory correctly.

The sister-in-law character, Elizabeth, plays an important role but gets zero development. You’re supposed to care about her, but the movie gives you no reason to.

The ending feels anticlimactic. No follow-up on how these events affected the characters. It just kind of stops.

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Priyanka Deserved Better

Here’s the thing: Priyanka isn’t bad in this. She commits fully to the role, and you can feel the weight behind her fighting style.

She’s playing a mother protecting her family, and that fierceness comes through. The action sequences are physically demanding, and she sells it.

But she also produced this film with the Russo brothers, which makes me question some of the creative decisions. This feels like a weird mix of Indian and American producers trying to make something that appeals to both markets, and ending up with a muddled mess.

Priyanka has such a questionable Western filmography: The Matrix Resurrections, Baywatch, and Isn’t It Romantic. I want to support her work, especially since she’s doing huge things in Indian cinema, but this ain’t it.

My Final Verdict

The Bluff wastes your time. It wants to be a gritty, violent pirate film, but it’s not stylized enough to justify the creative liberties it takes.

I wanted to like this. I really did. It was filmed in Australia, it stars Priyanka, whom I genuinely enjoy watching, and the concept of a hard R-rated pirate movie sounded interesting. But sitting on my bed watching this, I just kept thinking, “This is completely wasting my time.”

Skip this and rewatch the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies if you want pirate action. Or check out Master and Commander if you want something more serious.

The Bluff trades all the personality and fun of good pirate films for cheap-looking violence and a paper-thin story. Priyanka can do way better than this.

Have you watched The Bluff? What did you think? Drop your thoughts below.