Les pirates de l'île sauvage

I saw Nate and Hayes back in the day, in the darkness of the theater. It was fun, but the memory of Raiders of the Lost Ark (which was certainly responsible for this film's existence) was too fresh, and this minor film suffered in comparison. Though Nate and Hayes was competently made, and had it's charms, it was obviously a TV movie that somehow made it up to the big screen. I think that if they'd had a bit more money to spend, the filmmakers could have created a film just as good as Disney's recent pirate adventures. With more varied camera-work, a few more creative action bits, better costumes, and richer cinematography, the same screenplay could have been made into a smash hit classic. In fact, most of the big hits of the past 3 decades have basically just been slick and shiny remakes of little films like this one. And Tommy Lee Jones makes a fantastic Pirate, Texas accent and all!

For anyone who enjoys old fashioned swashbuckling fun, here's a great movie! Tommy Lee Jones, Jenny Seagrove and Michael O'Keefe make a tremendous trio against such dastardly villains as Ben Pease and the German empire, not to mention a cannibal, human-sacrificing South Pacific Islander prince. What I really loved about this movie, though, was the humor and how it not only comes from the situations but especially from the characters, who they are and how they react in those situations. There is some silliness but all in good fun, and action, action, action. I'd recommend this movie for a rainy Saturday afternoon.

This terrific adventure did poor business on release, maybe due to the title : "Nate and Hayes" sounds more like a department store than a swashbuckler. The UK title, "Savage Islands", summed it up much better. As one other writer commented, the film has certain features in common with "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" but is actually much superior to the Spielberg effort. Tommy Lee Jones brings great charisma to the pirate hero, Michael O'Keefe is excellent as the pompous missionary who grows up in the course of the film, Jenny Seagrove is a meltingly beautiful yet spirited heroine and Australian actor Max Phipps is fine as the cruelly funny Ben Pease. There are rousing action sequences and a host of neat touches which suggest a lot of care went into the film.

I thoroughly enjoyed Nate and Hayes as a "tween"---it had all the things a young fella would look for...action, adventure, and wry, often purposefully bad humor.

Certainly ranks up there with the Indiana Jones flicks as far as scripting and subject matter, just lacked the funding to be as over the top. Still, the film does not stretch beyond its means in this regard, as Temple of Doom tended to (ie the inflatable lifeboat "parachute" sequence).

As many folks here have mentioned, this is Saturday afternoon fare at its finest. Not to be taken seriously, does not take itself seriously, yet remains a class act.

This is a great movie, not necessarily the most historically accurate film, but its still a really good pirate movie. I'm not sure of the year this movie was supposed to take place but at the beginning they are trying to sell thirty-thirty lever-action rifles... which didn't come out until the early eighteen hundreds. throughout the rest of the movie there are a bold mixture of period firearms that don't really let you get a grasp on when this is supposed to take place. What I really found interesting was that it had a scene in the beginning with the rope bridge that was amazingly close to the famous scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom... especially since this movie came out a year before Temple of Doom. No matter what... it's a good watch.