The Bluff: Priyanka is a treat to watch

The pace at which Priyanka's Ercell fights off her enemies and secures her family into a bunker, you would forget you are in a Hollywood thriller, notes Divya Nair.

What is The Bluff about?

The Bluff positioned itself as a 'swashbuckler action thriller' and the star cast featuring BAFTA nominees and winners promised to offer a gripping edge of the seat action.

With a run time of 100 minutes, you sit back with a tub of popcorn hoping to be swept away with powerful scenes of action.

What is Priyanka's role in The Bluff?

Priyanka Chopra plays Ercell Bodden, an ex-captain and pirate living a quiet family life on an island expecting her husband Bodden (Ismail Kruz Cordova) to come home from sea.

It doesn't take Einstein brains to figure out that our country belle Ercell is hiding something dangerous behind her identity when she walks home and finds visible clues of a potential invader in her sister's room. The cover-up in the room is unsettling, the air thick with suspicion, and there are signs that a storm is about to break over that sleepy beach house.

The plot thickens overnight when a group of pirates take over her quaint island as they come looking for the gold Ercell stole from her former partner Captain Connor (Karl Urban) after betraying him and his crew years ago.

Before you know it, Priyanka is punching, kicking and drawing daggers at strange, bulky men who would do just anything to reclaim their treasure. The pace at which Priyanka's Ercell fights off her enemies and secures her family into a bunker, you would forget you are in a Hollywood thriller.

In fact, it gives you the feeling that she is walking effortlessly from one set to another where everything is laid out in her favour like in a gaming setup.

In one particular scene when she confronts the bad guy, she threatens 'Before you touch my family' and then smashes his face to a pulp.

The dialogue I realise is strikingly similar to Shah Rukh's iconic 'Bete ko haath lagane se pehle' from Jawaan. It can't be coincidence, though (insert wicked smile emoji). And if it was playing in a theatre in India, I am sure Priyanka-SRK sympathisers would whistle and demand an encore.

But the makers are happy with these gimmicks and waste no time in getting to the climax. Halfway through the movie, I begin to wonder if everyone was on a tight budget or if the cast and crew had to finish this film and get back home to do some actual work, because the story is simpler than a primary school essay, but it is packaged to believe that it's the swashbuckler action thriller of the year.

And why on Earth does Priyanka call the place The Bluff? No answers there either.

Priyanka's action in The Bluff

Priyanka is a treat to watch in this underwhelming thriller.

Unlike the smart Hollywoood films where the hero would actually get a bit hurt and take time or cover to recover, Priyanka reminds them that she's from Bollywood. That a few rounds of bullets, bloodshed, wall press and gut punches won't stop her from saving the stolen gold and her family from these pirate-goons.

Our female hero bleeds, yes, but only aesthetically; she is wounded, but not hurt.

What an absolute waste and mockery of the talented supporting cast because the camera never takes its lens away from its co-producer acting as the unstoppable, unbreakable, ever-glorified centre of it all -- while everyone else stands around like decorative pieces of furniture to make way for our central character who simply fought for her freedom and escaped because she dreamed to build a happy family.

The silver lining in the film, if you may call it, is how Priyanka pays homage to her maternal grandmother, a Syrian Christian Malayalee, as she reveals her maiden name Mariam to her clueless son in the climax.

The Bluff streams on Amazon Prime Video.

The Bluff Review Rediff Rating: