Desperate Voyage

...therefore something to keep on your boats' VHS shelve (or your laptop harddrive) for long night crossings. There might be some violence, rape, pillaging and boat damage involved, so this entertaining gem of a bygone era might make you watch the radar a bit more paranoid while and afterwards but will keep you awake for sure! Though a TV flic very good actors, having to cope with a bit of a dumb script, but entertaining as said and will not bore you (as many many modern movies definetly do!). Interestings boats, sailing and manouvers! I wish there would be more boating movies out there. And last but not least I can't hesitate to ask if I'm the only one thinking Lara Parker 1980 reminds me of Charlize Theron today?

It worries me when I have never heard of the director, and that is certainly the case in regard to Michael O'Herlihy, whom I know not from the traditional bar of soap. After watching DESPERATE VOYAGE, I would be desperate, with nothing else to watch, if ever I watched any of his stuff again.

DESPERATE VOYAGE is the ultimate example of shoestring TV production, filmed haphazardly with low quality film, and obviously no retakes. I suppose the poor VHS copy did not help, either.

Canadian-born Christopher Plummer, a best supporting actor Oscar winner, deserved better than to play a Cajun from down south USA, mixing French with heavily accented English as he engages in piracy at sea.

The plot is preposterous. A couple (Cliff Potts and Christine Belford) take another couple (lovely Lara Parker and weak Nicholas Pryor) on their boat but Parker feels unwell, keeps retching and - bad idea! - because they are 12 hours away from land, Potts puts out a call for assistance, so the couple can be taken to land. Why they could not just take their pals and plonk them on land beats me, especially after learning later that they have 12 hours' worth of fuel in the tank.

So they place themselves at the mercy of merciless, gun-toting and wallet-robbing Cajun pirate Plummer and his nephew, the rather dumb-looking Louis, played by the inevitably evil Jonathan Banks, who would rise to his career peak as the main villain in BEVERLEY HILLS COP a few years later.

Given that all the action unfolds at sea, there is not much you can do to make things even a little bit unpredictable. One saving grace is Parker - pure eye candy at the age of 42 - but in the end her fate goes unknown.

Potts plays the resourceful boat owner with a cheating wife who wants to be forgiven - that is the sole unpredictable twist about the film, but it matters zero in the context of the plot.

Cinematography by John Flinn III rates more desperate than the voyage, clearly all shot on stable studio ground with sea visuals as background - ain't foolin' me, O'Herlihy & Flinn III! ... 4/10.

Christopher Plummer sporting an annoying "Cajun" accent, plunders sailboats in the Gulf of Mexico. This modern day pirate has a demented rapist nephew, Jonathan Banks, for his crew. The cat and mouse game between Plummer and his nautical prey is what "Desperate Voyage" depends on. I should mention, anyone the least bit susceptible to sea sickness might want to avoid this film, as the entire production never touches land. This really is minimalist entertainment, with some vessel ramming, to occasionally liven things up. The remainder is padded with relationship problems between one of the sailboat couples. Not bad, but rather slow moving at times. - MERK

This was made before "Dead Calm" some ten years later, which must have got some of the ideas from this TV drama filmed entirely at sea but with a more sinister situation. Here there are no wrecks floating around with dreadful secrets but real sailing boats in the Gulf of Mexico actually being hunted by modern pirates, who go for any sailing boat to kill everyone on board and plunder what's in it to then sink it - with no second thoughts at all. Christopher Plummer actually states this has been the profession of his family ever since the days of Jean Lafitte more than 150 years earlier. One sailing boat carries four passengers on a joy ride for sport, but two of them are lying sick below deck. The pirates act as rescuers and agree to bring the sick couple back to where they came from, they welcome this generosity with hearts overflowing with gratitude, having no idea of the nightmare expecting them. The other two sail on but will meet with the 'rescuers' again... It's a horrible thriller of professional cruelty, which Christopher Plummer actually makes convincing. The music is good, you' ll enjoy the infinity of the horizons of the deep blue sea, you'll see no land anywhere throughout the film and only these very lonesome vessels, growing more lonesome before they sink. At least two are sunk, and you'll never know how many more were sunk before them.

It's a great thriller, but you would hardly like to watch it again.

This is a hard film to catch on the TV anymore. It was only released on video in the UK. The story is about modern day pirates terrorizing two couples on a large sailing sloop. Christopher Plummer and Jonathan Banks (as his demented nephew) are wonderful as the pirates. Christine Belford and Cliff Potts are only decent 80's TV actors, but they don't hurt the film's fast pace and exciting climax. Lara Parker (Dark Shadows) has one of her biggest film roles-- aside from Race With The Devil. She is just so beautiful and such an underrated actress. The entire film was shot at sea. Beautiful photography, Plummer, Banks and Parker make this 80's TV movie of the week a winner!