The Bluff is one of those movies that got me because of the whole pirate vibe that was attached to a woman's past, but even before it started playing I wanted to watch it for that reason. Ercell Bodden lives a quiet, peaceful existence with her disabled son Isaac and her sister-in-law Elizabeth on the Cayman Brac island. On the outside she's a normal woman, a mother, all the way normal, but Isaac and Elizabeth don't know that she was once a pirate, not just any pirate, but a pirate with a whole sinister and dangerous past that she left behind when she decided to take up this quiet life.
Meanwhile, all the domestic tranquility goes on, while Ercell waits for her husband, a sea captain, to return home. This uneasy tension is set in the background from the beginning of the story since his ship is already fifty nine days late at the moment the story begins, and there's that quiet dread of waiting on someone who should be back a long time ago and not yesterday back.
But all changes when an old friend from Ercell's past appears from nowhere, bringing his band of bloodthirsty buccaneers with him, her perfectly laid-out peaceful life is now under direct attack, It is not a random pirate attack this man is making on her, there is a big history between them, unfinished business that Ercell wasn't expecting to be coming back to her, That's where the real drama of the movie begins, though, because Ercell must decide whether she'll turn her back on who she is and risk losing everything, or come to terms with the skills and the ruthlessness that she has buried years ago to save her son and her sister-in-law from a threat that's not going away quietly.
Watching her transition from this soft, protective mother figure back into the sharp, deadly version of herself she used to be is honestly the most entertaining part of the whole film, hehe, Not a drawn-out metamorphosis either, once it's a matter of life and death, she just goes there, and you get to see why this is a guy that really should have left her alone in the first place.
Now the part that really got to me,is when her captain's husband dies! I can't say it was not well done but I was just not ready to let that character go. For the entire duration of the movie, even though it is quiet, you're thinking about, "Oh, will he get back? Will he be alright? Will he be home in time? There's this hope that's there under every scene that Ercell is looking out at the sea waiting for him. So that hope that doesn't come when you want it, just sits heavy on you, particularly when by then you're not only emotionally invested in Ercell making it through the attack, but also making it back to her husband.
I believe that's why this movie has stuck with me more than a standard pirate action movie would have, it was not only a fight and the reveal of her past, it was a fight for what she was fighting for in the first place, losing her husband, only made it more bittersweet with a victory that had more to do with survival than a clean victory.
Nothing but that one loss marred the ending for me, so yeah the action was good, the past reveal was good, but that loss took a bit of shine off the ending. It's the stuff that sticks with you after the credits, not because it was a dud, but because it made me care enough for it to actually hurt.
Rating: 90/100
