Pirates movie review & film summary (1986)

"Pirates" proves, if nothing else, that Matthau is not an action star and that Polanski is not an action director. We kind of knew that already. Matthau is, however, a very capable comedy actor, and there are times when Polanski seems to be trying for comedy, although search me if you can find a laugh in this movie. One of Polanski's very worst films was "The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me but Your Teeth Are in My Neck / Dance of the Vampires," and again this time, he is totally adrift trying for laughs with an expensive takeoff of a B-movie genre.

The real star of the movie is the Neptune, the full-size, functional galleon that was constructed as a set for most of the scenes. It's one of the finest sailing ships I've ever seen in a movie, but I couldn't see much of it, because Polanski steadfastly refuses to give us blood-stirring shots of the Neptune plowing through the waves. He begins with a real ship, then treats it like a studio set.

The real tragedy of "Pirates" may be that the movie was more of a deal than an inspiration. Polanski wrote the script 12 years ago, shortly after finishing "Chinatown," and it languished on his agent's desk until Tarak Ben Ammar, a wealthy Tunisian, finally signed on as producer. Polanski had gone eight years without a movie (his last film was "Tess"), and no doubt he was happy to have the work. But "Pirates" should never have been made, at least not by a director with no instinctive sympathy for the material, and not by an actor whose chief inspiration seems to be the desire to be a good sport.