Review of Cutthroat Island (1995) by Mark B — 18 May 2008

The most expensive film of all time at the time of it's release... one of the biggest flops of all time very shortly after.

Geena Davis is a swashbuckling femme fatale who is given the first of three pieces of a treasure map by her dying father - killed by his brother Frank Langella who has a second piece. A last brother has the third.

Matthew Modine is the silver-tongued, latin-speaking thief she ropes in to translate the map - a rogue who looks to play both sides to get the treasure for himself.

As panned as this film was, I do like it.

You can really see where the money has gone in this film. Renny Harlin's offering looks wonderful, the sets and locations are superb (galleons don't grow on trees) and the set-piece action sequences are spectacular.

The unfortunate thing here is that for all the films visual grandeur, it is not very well cast, performed or written.

First with the cast. Frank Langella as the fearsome Uncle Dog, is brilliant. He turns up the required pantomime villainy to full but unfortunately is used too little and was not a big name draw.

Matthew Modine, whilst doing his best here and doing well in places, does not have the bad-boy, charming rogue image that his character has. He is a 'nice' boy. If you've seen Memphis Belle then you know what I am talking about.

A more contemporary comparison would be he is more Jack than he is Sawyer! This film needed a Sawyer.

Modine was also not a big box-office draw. With all the money being spent on ships, wigs and swords, I guess the casting director didn't have much of a budget to play with at the time.

Nor did said casting director have much say into the role of our lead, Geena Davis - wife to the director. Whilst she certainly looks the part, her performances in some scenes are pretty woeful (Harris Yulin blindingly outshines her as the dying father).

Some fault for this can lay with the script. Dialogue is very clunky in places and the story is nowhere close to be as well executed as it is in Pirates of the Caribbean.

This film is all about the visuals, and as fantastic as they are, this is it's downfall. The first half of the film is a visual feast and the story is good enough to carry us along, but it later drags as the characters and story become too hollow and superficial.

It's definitely worth watching, but most will probably just watch the once.