It’s been a rough year so far with catching new release movies for me. After having seen a personal best 117 new release movies in 2025, as of early March, I was only up to nine here in 2026. I’ve seen loads of late-2025 flicks, sure! But precious few films that have come out this calendar year.

It hasn’t been for a lack of trying; there just hasn’t been a lot of worthwhile stuff released in this part of the year, the part often considered the dregs of the cinematic calendar. It’s been so bad, I’ve frequently considered watching a little nothing movie on Tubi called How To Lose A Popularity Contest. And really, why watch that when there are still so many great movies I could watch for the first time ever? I recently watched Chinatown and L.A. Confidential. I figure this were more fulfilling than a Tubi high school comedy. Sorry, Tubi; you know I still love you.

Anyway, imagine my joy when I was scrolling for something to watch with the wife tonight, and I turned on Amazon Prime and found a new feature called The Bluff. I had actually heard of this new product, but for some reason, I thought that it was a show or a series. Not so much! And that made our Friday night watch an incredibly easy choice.

The Bluff stars Karl Urban and Priyanka Chopra, among a few other notable stars like Temuera Morrison, and it is a pirate-themed action movie. I had not really considered how few pirate movies we get in recent days until this started, but that’s a sub-genre that has felt all the way dead since Pirates Of The Caribbean perfected the formula so many years ago. I figure a lot of studios worry about their pirate features paling in comparison to that, so they don’t get greenlit.

In The Bluff, Chopra stars as Ercell, a former baroness of the sea who has settled down into family life on the Cayman Islands. She has a husband, a sister-in-law, and a son. Her modern life has become fairly idyllic, all things considered.

That is all upended one day when Captain Connor (Urban) lands ashore of her island. He immediately brings violence to her home by terrorizing and killing those who protect the coastline. It seems that he has come in search of Ercell and the gold she has long since stolen from him…

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ Priyanka Chopra remains extremely talented and has some great action chops. She is very believable in the lead role, and she really gives her all. After this and her turn in Heads Of State, I am willing to see anything she stars in going forward. 

Karl Urban does his usual solid job as Connor, too. I certainly don’t mean to write him off in this Up. It’s just that Chopra is so dynamic and exciting that she steals The Bluff out from under everyone else. She started off–and still stars–in many Hindi language films, and I feel I should check those out, given my proclivity for Indian language cinema.

+ There are some exciting and creative action set pieces here, and The Bluff does not skimp on the brutality. From when Connor and his men arrive on Cayman Brac through the end of the picture, there are some superb scenes of fighting and adventure. There is one particularly vicious and gnarly death scene early on, too, that impressed me. So if you are into those kinds of moments, this effort will work out well for you!

– The story is not much to write home about. It’s a relatively basic action tale, just set in pirate times, the latter of which is really the whole thing’s shtick. But take that gimmick away, and you aren’t left with anything you haven’t seen before. 

Not every movie needs to strive to be avant garde and blow you away with its deep and complex plot, but sometimes it’s nice to get a little more than a bare elementary level of storytelling and mystique.

– The movie starts pretty slowly and takes several minutes to get going. It isn’t wildly exciting at first. It would be nice if it had more of a hook to open up with and really grab the viewer right away, but everything about the start feels a little generic.

Additionally, there is an early subplot about Ercell’s sister-in-law wanting to run away with her boyfriend, but that doesn’t go very far before it gets discarded. It ends up being the only character work that the SIL gets at all. So while they gave they something, and that is nice, I’d rather it had mattered longer in the film that it ends up doing so.

OVERALL

First here, I want to credit the movie for casting Vedanten Naidoo as Isaac, Ercell’s son. He identifies as having a disability, and that plays into the movie without it being a core aspect of his character. So good on the casting director and the film for doing that. Past that point, The Bluff is perfectly adequate. It’s not reinventing the action movie wheel or anything, but it’s entertaining and watchable. Chopra is a talented actress, and the action is thrilling. If you want a simple way to pass some time in a positive manner, The Bluff is for you.