Walter Matthau played many villains in his career, but his performance of the greasy, dirty, thoroughly charismatic Thomas Bartholemew Red is one of the best. As ever, Roy Kinnear plays his (brief) part well, and there is a touch of glamour from Charlotte Lewis as the captured "prize" daughter of the Governor, but all in all this is as flat as the seas upon which it traverses. There appears nothing spontaneous or even likeable in this - and this is a genre of cinema the I have always loved. Matthau is trying, but maybe that's the problem - he looks like he is. Colourful and action-packed, yes - but the semi-slapstick humour quickly wears way too thin, as does the overly contrived attempts at humour delivered by a clunky script. It's certainly a quickly-paced adventure film, but for the most part is a pretty shameless hybrid of everything from "Captain Blood" (1935) to "Against All Flags" (1952) and - well you can pretty much make up the rest of the list yourself. Bartholomew Red" at the helm, with his trusty sidekick "Frog" (Cris Campion) as they embark a-pirating. Roman Polanski adds absolutely nothing new to this maritime farce of a film with Walter Matthau's "Capt. 7.5/10įrom the outset, this just reminded me of a saltwater version of "The Three Musketeers" (1973). I wouldn't say it would be really great for those hungry for more after the 'Caribean' movies (frankly, it lacks a Jack Sparrow in its midst), but it should appeal those who want a strange brew of art-house adventure. From its opening scene on (which is, actually, a really amazing opening scene) to the final one which sort of wraps everything around, Polanski tools around with the conventions while trying to please himself, so to speak, with the formula.
#Pirates 2005 kickass movie
It's sometimes as dark in tone as Cul-de-sac, and other times almost as light as Oliver Twist, but it's also its own kind of movie bird, anchored by an uncharacteristically over-the-top Walter Matthau performance, some good stuffy co-stars like Damien Thomas and Ferdy Mayne, and there's a lot of action to go around the place as well. but somehow Polanski makes it work for himself, if not as one of his best. It owes itself in spirit to the Errol Flynn pictures and other on-the-sea programmers of the 30s and 40s, and surely plot is sometimes crazy and convoluted enough to fit the bill. It's a very weird movie in a respect, which is that Polanski puts his own print on what is a big-old swashbuckler. It was a project he wanted to do for years, tried to get funding with different actors, and finally settled on Walter Matthau as Captain Red and (relatively unknown) Cris Campion as his bumbling long-time sidekick Frog. This is one of the oddities in the career of Roman Polanski. Sure, the costumes and sets look terrific but that didn't add any entertainment to an incredibly bland, bad and embarrassing movie.
The performances are bland to say the least and poor Matthau just wasn't meant for this role. Especially when you consider how badly this one flopped and it's still not gotten an official DVD/Blu release in several major markets. The entire movie just seemed so uneven and so confused as to what it was trying to do that I'm really shocked Polanski got to do another movie. Just take a look at the long sequence dealing with the rat. What attempts at comedy are here are downright embarrassing and beyond stupid. I'm going to guess, at times, the film attempts to be a comedy, which is something Matthau could handle but Polanski has proved that comedy isn't his strong point. Was it meant to be an updated version of the type of film we saw Errol Flynn do back in the day? If so then why on Earth was Matthau cast in the picture? He's certainly not an actor star and it's just downright strange, to say the least, to see him trying to play one. So, what went wrong? For starters, I'm not even sure what type of movie this was trying to be. I might go even a step further and say it's one of the worst movies that you're ever going to see from a great director. In all honesty, I'm downright shocked that anyone enjoyed this picture because to me it was a complete mess from the opening scene to the very last and it's without question the worst thing I've seen from Polanski. After a seven year hiatus, director Roman Polanski had another film on the big screen and it was greeted to very mixed reviews and it turned into a disaster at the box office. The two manage to get on board but run into an even more brutal captain.
Pirates (1986) BOMB (out of 4) Captain Bartholomew Red (Walter Matthau) and his assistant The Frog (Cris Campion) are adrift at sea when they spot a ship.
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