Pirates (1986) Cannon/Action-Adventure-Comedy RT: 121 minutes Rated PG-13 (action violence, attempted rape, language) Director: Roman Polanski Screenplay: Gerard Brach, John Brownjohn and Roman Polanski Music: Philippe Sarde Cinematography: Witold Sobocinski Release date: July 18, 1986 (US) Cast: Walter Matthau, Cris Campion, Charlotte Lewis, Damien Thomas, Richard Pearson, Olu Jacobs, David Kelly, Roy Kinnear, Bill Fraser, Jose Santamaria, Ferdy Mayne, Anthony Peck, Emilio Fernandez, Wladyslaw Komar, Luc Jamati, Georges Trillat, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Anthony Dawson. Box Office: $1.6M (US)/$6.3M (World)
Rating: *
I’m not going to sit here and claim that Roman Polanski has a spotless track record. He’s made some great films- e.g. Repulsion (1965), Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Chinatown (1974), Tess (1980), Bitter Moon (1992) and The Pianist (2002)- and some not so great ones- e.g. The Tenant (1976), Death and the Maiden (1994), The Ninth Gate (1999) and Carnage (2011). None of these titles, however, are anywhere near as bad as Pirates, a flat-footed attempt at a rip-roaring pirate adventure that neither rips nor roars. Hell, it barely moves. It stays adrift for two hours, going nowhere slowly.
Roman wanted Pirates to be his next film after Chinatown. He intended for Jack Nicholson to play the lead, but he couldn’t afford to pay the salary the actor demanded. He ran into several other problems trying to get things started including fleeing the US in 1978 to avoid serving prison time for sexual assault of a minor. Funding proved to be a real problem too. After the original investors pulled out, wealthy Tunisian film producer Tarak Ben Ammar (Jesus of Nazareth) stepped in and put up most of the money needed to launch Pirates.
Production finally commenced in Tunisia in November ’84. It was plagued by endless problems like poor weather conditions and on-set accidents. It went over budget with a final price tag of $40M. MGM/UA was originally set to distribute Pirates in the US, but Ammar and co-producer Thom Mount bought them out and sold it to Cannon Films. I’m guessing Golan and Globus saw it as an opportunity to release a prestigious film which they occasionally did- e.g. Runaway Train (1985), Duet for One (1986), King Lear (1987) and Tough Guys Don’t Dance (1987). They should have left this one alone. It’s a blight on the record of everybody involved.
The story, such as it is, centers on British pirate Captain Red (Matthau, The Bad News Bears) and his sidekick, a French boy he calls “Frog” (Campion, Field of Honor). We first meet them when they’re stranded on a raft somewhere in the ocean. They’re rescued when the Spanish galleon Neptune happens by. Rather, they climb aboard while nobody’s looking. When they’re finally noticed, they’re thrown into the brig with the ship’s cook Boomako (Jacobs, Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend) who tells them about the golden Aztec throne in the hold. Red decides he must have it for himself.
Most of Pirates centers on the rivalry between Red and ruthless Don Alonso (Thomas, Shogun), the first mate made captain after the questionable death of his predecessor (Mayne, Yellowbeard). He’s a cruel sort who has the hots for their passenger, a young girl named Maria Dolores (Lewis, The Golden Child). Frog falls for her the minute he first sees her. He stops from being raped when Red leads a mutiny against Don Alonso. Take a guess which guy she likes better? BTW, the mutiny is merely a means of obtaining the coveted throne.
Pirate movies, popular in the 30s, 40s and 50s, were all but extinct in ’86. The few that got made- Swashbuckler (1976), The Pirate Movie (1982), Yellowbeard (1983) and Nate and Hayes (1983)- died at the box office. Audiences didn’t even turn out for the filmed adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance (1983). Pirates followed suit by sinking immediately upon its mid-July release with a paltry gross of $1.6M. It closed after only a week. I didn’t even get a chance to see it at the cinema. I had to wait until it came out on video to witness the shipwreck for myself. My response is best described by quoting Ryan O’Neal in Tough Guys Don’t Dance: “Oh man! Oh God, oh man! Oh God, oh man!” It’s a disaster in all the wrong ways.
Surprisingly, Pirates managed to earn itself an Oscar nomination for Best Costume Design (it lost to A Room with a View). That’s the only good thing about this otherwise crummy movie. I’ll also give it credit for the ship’s design. Roman had a full-sized, functional galleon built for the film. It looks great, but we don’t get to really see it action. Where are the scenes of the Neptune plowing through waves or firing its cannons at rival ships? It’s mostly used as a set for poorly staged scenes of salty sea dogs and foppish commanders going about their business. There are a couple of big fight sequences, but they’re too clunky to be even remotely engaging. And if Pirates fails as a swashbuckling pirate adventure, it’s even worse as a comedy. Roman tries to inject humor into the proceedings, but each attempt lands with a thud that can be heard clear into the adjacent theater. He’s clearly in over his head with this genre.
Matthau wasn’t first choice to play Red. He wasn’t even the second. Michael Caine was supposed to star, but left months before the cameras started rolling. He was replaced by Matthau who reportedly didn’t like anything about the script. He only accepted the role at the urging of his son who told him he shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to work with “one of the great directors today”. I like Matthau as an actor, but I do NOT like the character he plays in Pirates. Red is a vile, disgusting and sadistic individual without a single redeeming quality. He’s not a charming scoundrel like the ones Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power used to portray. Also, the actor doesn’t look like he’s having any fun at all. He wears a pained expression beneath that beard. You can see it if you look closely.
To be fair, Matthau’s performance isn’t too bad. The problem is he’s not an action star. He is woefully miscast here. However, he still fares better than Campion who makes no impression whatsoever as Frog, a comparatively decent person following the worst possible leader. He gets nothing in the way of development beyond his attraction for Maria. Lewis is a beautiful girl. That’s about all there is to say about her in Pirates. Roman could have cast a plastic mannequin in the role and it wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference.
Pirates is an ugly movie. It’s never pretty or pleasant. It’s dark, disgusting and filthy. Roman was clearly going for realism, but why do that when you’re supposedly making a fun matinee picture for teens? It’s the most wrong of wrong moves. The movie hits rock bottom with one of the most stomach-turning things I’ve ever seen in a movie. It’s the scene where Red and Frog are forced to eat a boiled rat by Don Alonso. I actually gagged which is funny since I can take anything a bloody horror movie throws at me. This made me reach for a barf bag.
There is absolutely no fun to be had in watching Pirates. It’s completely unwatchable. It’s not even good as a bad movie. It’s simply that, a bad movie. It has one of the most unsatisfying endings I’ve ever seen. I think it’s supposed to be some kind of ironic punchline except I’m not laughing. It took Roman 12 years to get Pirates made. He would have been off giving up the ship and junking the script. A burial at sea is the only fitting end to a movie this awful. It makes Cutthroat Island (1995) look all that much better. At least that one was fun.
