The Bluff Movie Review: Don’t Be Bluffed

Even with Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Karl Urban’s talents, The Bluff falls short in most categories; this swashbuckler has little to no tension or thrills.

A hard R-rated pirate revenge thriller where Priyanka Chopra stars in a role that seems to prime audiences for the incredible ass-kicking she’s going to deliver in S.S. Rajamouli’s Varanasi? Sign me up! Add Karl Urban to the mix as the villainous pirate looking to collect what he’s allegedly owed, and you don’t even need to say anything else to me. I’ll tune in. Unfortunately, very little – if any – works in The Bluff, and you wouldn’t be forgiven for wanting to skip this movie altogether, or not even knowing it exists. 

It’s a real shame, because the concept is simple but could have worked so well on a micro-level, had Flowers focused on delivering action sequences that didn’t feel like stuff we’ve already seen before, done better in more technically averse productions, but with pirates. And Chopra Jonas has been desperate for a blockbuster hit outside India, but none of her lead roles in film and television have stuck as much as her performances in Bollywood. I cannot for the life of me remember Citadel, a show I watched that was touted as the most expensive television series of all time, while I can absolutely recall where I was when I saw her for the first time in Madhur Bhandarkar’s Fashion. 

In The Bluff, she’s definitely the best part about it, but it isn’t really saying much, because her character doesn’t have much room to breathe or develop meaningfully. She plays a woman named Ercell, a former pirate who has been trying to leave her past life behind, but it’s finally catching up after her husband, T.H. Bodden (Ismael Cruz Córdova), gets apprehended by Captain Connor’s (Karl Urban) crew. Leading them to their village, Connor wants the gold that Ercell apparently stole and is willing to kill everyone in his way for it. The opening action sequence should give an idea of how truly vicious Connor’s will for the gold is, but Flowers’ direction lacks the necessary impact to sell it. 

Even during a bravura one-shot between Ercell and a group of assailants looking to harm her and her child, Flowers and cinematographer Greg Baldi consistently neuter the violence with strange framing choices that lessen the impact of a hit or stab, as the protagonist will do everything in her power to ensure no one hurts anyone in her wake. There are occasions when a bloody brawl is teased, but never fulfilled, and the action sequences, supposedly the star of the show, get less creative and amusing with each subsequent setpiece. Every time something genuinely violent is slightly inferred, Flowers cuts away from any instance of blood, which begs the question as to why this was rated R in the first place. 

It gets even worse when it reaches the climax and, no spoilers, the slight sense of geography that defined most action scenes up to this point is lost in incomprehensibly edited, shoddily shot swordfights that feel like you’re watching an Asylum mockbuster you bought for a dollar at a Walmart bargain bin. Before watching the film, I wondered why the rare pirate movie with such immense star power and the Russo Brothers’s backing would get a direct-to-Prime Video release rather than a full-fledged theatrical rollout. As I was watching The Bluff, I realized why. It’s a painfully boring actioner that doesn’t even have one memorable moment, let alone a sequence that could have elevated this streaming piece of “content” into something akin to Ángel Manuel Soto’s The Wrecking Crew, which was genuine fun and had a bevy of impeccably choreographed fight scenes. 

The self-serious nature of The Bluff also doesn’t help its case, because there’s very little fun to be had here. The reason the Pirates of the Caribbean movies were so successful is that, despite their relatively dark stories, they still added immense levity through their character dynamics and highly playful action. Of course, Jack Sparrow was also a major source of comic relief and one of the main draws that made the franchise so fun, but one can’t overstate the exuberant nature of the whole project. The Bluff needed way more of that and less of a brooding tone that hampers its forward-momentum and makes the entire thing feel devoid of any passion or excitement.

Worse yet, none of the characters are interesting. We can’t fault Priyanka Chopra and Karl Urban for at least trying to infuse something out of the paper-thin material they’re given, but they can’t do anything with these one-note archetypes. Urban plays a brooding, deeply evil villain driven by egotism, while Chopra has a bit more to work with as a former pirate who wants to leave that life behind but must first confront the sins of her past. However, there’s little to no three-dimensionality in the treatment of her protagonist, even when big reveals occur that should theoretically shift the dynamic of the picture, but do very little to enhance the on-screen tension. Side characters are also terribly underdeveloped in what is otherwise a two-hander between Chopra and Urban. Anyone else, including Temuera Morrison, may try to do something with their roles, but won’t get anything in return. 

The result is yet another mindless, forgettable, expensive direct-to-streaming blockbuster from Prime Video, likely to be consumed by the masses, become the “#1 movie in the world on the streaming service” and be quickly forgotten within a week, leaving zero cultural impact. If it weren’t for the fact that it was logged on Letterboxd, perhaps you won’t even remember you ever watched this one at all…

The Bluff is now available to stream globally on Prime Video from February 25, 2026.