Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
There is of course, one thing that comes to mind when you hear the name Roman Polanski, and it’s certainly not “pirates”. Unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor aside, and whether you want to put that to one side is a decision I shall leave up to you, is it worth the moral headache to view Pirates?
No.
But seeing as we’re a film review podcast I suppose we’d as well review it. Set in 1659, we are introduced to Walter Matthau’s notorious pirate Captain Red and his loyal sidekick, Cris Campion’s Jean-Baptiste, or “Frog”, adrift on a raft and contemplating cannibalism. Before that line is crossed they are rescued by a homeward bound Spanish treasure galleon, the Neptune, and thrown immediately in the brig.
There Red starts to plot to force a mutiny on the Neptune, and claim their prize treasure, an Aztec throne of gold for himself. On the other side of the ship are Damien Thomas’ Don Alfonso de la Torré, taking over as Captain after the death of the original one, who’s trying to seduce a passenger, Charlotte Lewis’ Maria-Dolores, the niece of Maracaibo’s governor, who Frog has also taken quite a shine to.
And, well, so it goes, with mutinies and counter-mutinies, ransoming and a single minded pursuit of shiny furniture that will ultimately lead to Red’s undoing.
If we’re being positive, it’s nice to see pirates being, well, unscrupulous brigands, not the more Robin Hood-esque freedom fighters that they’re often massaged into in films looking for more sympathy. This, being a nominal comedy, is happy to make Red the butt of the joke.
It’s a shame the jokes aren’t actually funny in any way, especially the ill-advised slapstick routines that are just embarrassing. Walter Matthau gives it his all, with some enthusiastic delivery of lines that don’t really deserve a lot of enthusiasm.
It’s not all bad, for example, the production design is entirely impeccable, from the costuming to the full sized replica galleon built for the film at tremendous cost, which does look great. However, that aside, I don’t think I’ve a great deal positive to say about this film. It’s aiming at a younger crowd, I suppose, but it seems that the way they interpreted that aim is to make it all of the jokes a bit too silly for a film that’s threatening to rape characters this often. A bit of a clash of styles and a bit of a mess.
Quite the disappointment. Don’t bother with this one.