Piratas

Oh dear me,How can any one say this is a awful film.

Captain Thomas Bartholomew Red played by Walter Matthau,is just great, Walter Matthau plays this roll with great easy it is not so much as what lines he says but the way he plays the roll.

Just look out for the the looks that Walter Matthau gives to camera,it will have you laughing out loud & if you like me will be on the side of Captain Thomas Batholomew Red.

I only wish is that this film will be available on DVD, I look each week hoping to see that it is now available.

I will be the first to add this Film "Pirates" to my collation.

This film is one of Polanski's masterpieces. He did to pirate movies what Sergio Leone did to western: showing the opposite of the usual sancticised glamorous movie portrayal of an era, yet achieving an epic effect, and images you want to see again and again.

But a difference to Leone, beyond a high dose of irony and situation comic, is the bittersweet ingredient of the Central-Eastern-European experience, of lack of success and constant failure, constantly hitting all of our heroes in the film.

Memories of living under communism might have also played a role in the (for me) most memorable part of the movie, the failed mutiny followed by the successful mutiny aboard the Spanish ship: the way the aristocrats have power over the people, and make Captain Red and The Frog eat the rat. And then, hilarious juxtaposing, the mutiny is like a parody of a communist revolution.

But the best thing about the film are the actors. Walter Matthau is at his best as the grumpy old liar Captain Red, Damien Thomas is terrific as Don Alfonso the hyper-arrogant Spanish aristocrat who'll never loses his superiority, Roy Kinnear the embodiment of ugliness as the Dutch, and also the young no-names Cris Campion (playing The Frog, the naive young Frenchman at Captain Red's side) and Charlotte Lewis (playing the even more naive daughter of the governor).

Though a bit shaky on historical specifics, this is a visually rich film that is simply fun to watch. This Walter Matthau is NOT the same Grumpy Old Man. This one is a charismatic sociopath who cheerfully and loudly sacrifices everything and nearly everyone in the quest for gold. Still, it is the atmosphere of the film that captures you. You experience the clinging Carribbean air, the rank dungeon and bilge deck prisons, the salt breezes and jungle rot. Though these are evil characters, the audience roots for the pirates as they are turned away from their goal by Spaniards, nature and their own greed. This movie is an evolutionary leap from the Errol Flynn and Burt Lancaster pirates and well worth a bowl of popcorn.

I agree with many of the comments here, but most have opted to concentrate on Walter Matthau's (forgive the spelling if it's wrong) delicious performance as Captain Red. While it is undeniably brilliant - a few dodgy accent moments aside - especially when you consider how few risks many actors take with their casting, I would like to draw attention to a fine performance by Cris Campion as The Frog. When I was watching this again the other day and getting my girlfriend to watch it, she at first despaired when I told her the frog was the romantic lead. I told her to have patience, and at the end she could, after all, see why he was the object of Dolores' love. Head and shoulders above nearly all young actors around at the moment, Campion exudes passion, swashbuckling- derring-do and smouldering charm as well as being an excellent foil for Matthau's comic exertions. This makes his love story with Dolores all the more heightened and genuinely affecting. In many modern "buddy" films, the onscreen duo have no chemistry and are simply put together to maximise box office interest, but Matthau and Campion are a perfectly matched pair, the frog's unfaltering loyalty to his captain matching Red's utterly selfish backstabbing. You get the feeling that if there is one person in the world that Red would not betray, it might be the frog - even if he might eat him!

This enjoyably foolish romp was apparently a flop, and mauled by the critics. Why? Good question. I speculate three reasons: lack of an obviously American lead and presence, an opening set-up that pays off in the long run but doesn't provide a beginning with a bang, and an anarchic, politically incorrect, almost amoral tone that was not digestible to Disneyfied mainstream audiences. These, and the length of the piece, would have been strengths if this had been released as a children's book, and I further speculate that it would have been well received in such a format, as a homage to old stories like Treasure Island. It could then have been adapted into a hit movie (with more explosions and an ethically impeccable American hero who does get the girl in the end).

As it is, there is much to admire, delight and entertain, with legitimate criticisms being some of the dodgy casting and (lack of)linguistics (especially as regards the Spanish characters) - Walther Matthau's gloriously over-the-top performance honourably excepted - some lapses of logic in the plot (why doesn't the Frog just swim after the rowboat and bring it back when they get stuck on the chain?), and the fact that it is slightly too long.

Ripe for a sequel, if, like me, you ever wondered what happened to Cap'n Red and his beloved throne, and The Frog and his beloved Dolores.