Priyanka Chopra Jonas Unleashes Bloody Mary in Gritty Russo Brothers Pirate Saga

Max Sterling, 1/8/2026Pirate film The Bluff lets Priyanka Chopra Jonas trade tiaras for blood-soaked conch shell knuckles, smashing clichés with every swing. Forget Disneyland—these outlaws bleed, sweat, and haunt the shoreline. History gets its grit back, and piracy’s never looked this raw, desperate, or compelling.

Set on these sunblasted islands in the 1800s—well after the supposed heyday of piracy—The Bluff bulldozes through the notion that pirates were all flamboyant cutthroats with catchy choruses. What gets built in its place is something rougher, meaner. Think: a mafia family drama starved of velvet, dressed in rags, armed with whatever iron happens to be closest. The film trades Jack Sparrow’s eyeliner for blood spatters and a sort of desperate dignity, all orchestrated by director Frank E. Flowers. Flowers, a Caymanian with more than a passing interest in authenticity, gives the genre a much-needed saltwater rinse: “If you could swing an ax and didn’t mind the rot, there’s your crew.” He isn’t kidding.

At the film’s heart sits Ercell Bodden—whose nickname, “Bloody Mary,” is less a cocktail than a warning scratched into driftwood. She may be living quietly now, tending a family, but old debts are hard to retire—harder still when they come collecting with cutlass and flame, led by Karl Urban’s Captain Connor. Their reunion? Imagine the world’s worst class reunion, knives included, hugs very much not.

This isn’t scenery-chewing for the sake of it. Chopra Jonas wrings ferocity and fear from her character, all in the key of mothers protecting cubs. The fights, according to Flowers, hew closer to alley brawls than ballet—“grab whatever’s nearby and hope it breaks their nose first.” No graceful spins, just pain management and desperation. There’s a scene where Ercell wields a chunk of shell with the kind of wild, feral fury only a mother cornered can muster. Chopra Jonas herself said she hadn’t known women once captained real-life pirate fleets—that is, until the script asked her to grab history by its bruised knuckles. The lineage is bloody and surprisingly real: names like Grace O’Malley and Zheng Yi Sao linger in the background, women pirates who didn’t wait for permission to take charge.

Splinters seem almost a requirement on this set, thanks to a house where every floorboard threatens mutiny. Not even movie magic can soften the blows when the choreography is dictated by what the Caymans would have actually offered: stray conch shells, salt-heavy planks, and open wounds. Chopra Jonas admits the fight scenes were less “action star fantasy” and more “emergency room reality”—the price of going off the studio map.

Karl Urban brings his own flavor to Connor, a man whose past with the East India Trading Company feels less like a backstory and more like an open sore. Ex-empire man, forced into piracy by irrelevance—bitterness becomes him. Urban leans into that wounded-tyrant energy, creating a character as magnetic as he is unpleasant. Any warmth between Connor and Ercell has long since been scraped away, leaving only the grit of betrayal.

There have been whispers, understandably, about the film’s bloody, unapologetic edge. With the Russo Brothers producing and zero appetite for smoothing things out, the violence here is pungent and necessary—stripped of the fantasy gloss that used to paper over the ugliness. A conch shell isn’t just a metaphor, it’s a weapon and a warning.

Of course, it’s not just about the body count. What stands out, in the battered sunlight of Flowers’ lens, is the price exacted by survival—especially for women who claw their way out of violence only to have it come knocking years later. The film meditates, quietly but firmly, on the tolls paid for peace, and all the ways old wounds insist on being reopened.

Those still expecting a perky parrot or a wink at “yo-ho-ho” will come away windburned. The Bluff refuses to let nostalgia steer. Even its supposed egalitarianism is shown through a lens of mutual utility—nobody’s here for a handshake unless there’s a knife up the sleeve.

With 2025 approaching and audiences publicly tiring of safe, formulaic blockbusters, The Bluff lands as bracingly out-of-step. Its heroine is less captain than coming storm, a human tempest swinging shells and secrets in equal measure. When the fighting starts, and it will, the film strips away every artifice—leaving only the raw, unsteady calculus of survival. It’s not pretty, but then, neither is the ocean after a storm. As they say in the Caymans, the sea remembers.

One hardly expects high fashion to pair with bare-knuckle bloodsport, but The Bluff opens with just that—a goddess marooned in salt and filth, hand curled around the serrated lip of a conch like she’s about to reinvent the five-finger discount. Priyanka Chopra Jonas doesn’t so much wield a seashell as threaten to make whalebone jewelry out of her adversaries. Forget cartoonish pirates with their choreographed swordplay and that faint whiff of Halloween plastic; this isn’t your uncle’s rum-soaked bedtime story. These pirates bleed red, and sometimes salt, right into the Cayman sand.Set on these sunblasted islands in the 1800s—well after the supposed heyday of piracy—The Bluff bulldozes through the notion that pirates were all flamboyant cutthroats with catchy choruses. What gets built in its place is something rougher, meaner. Think: a mafia family drama starved of velvet, dressed in rags, armed with whatever iron happens to be closest. The film trades Jack Sparrow’s eyeliner for blood spatters and a sort of desperate dignity, all orchestrated by director Frank E. Flowers. Flowers, a Caymanian with more than a passing interest in authenticity, gives the genre a much-needed saltwater rinse: “If you could swing an ax and didn’t mind the rot, there’s your crew.” He isn’t kidding.At the film’s heart sits Ercell Bodden—whose nickname, “Bloody Mary,” is less a cocktail than a warning scratched into driftwood. She may be living quietly now, tending a family, but old debts are hard to retire—harder still when they come collecting with cutlass and flame, led by Karl Urban’s Captain Connor. Their reunion? Imagine the world’s worst class reunion, knives included, hugs very much not.This isn’t scenery-chewing for the sake of it. Chopra Jonas wrings ferocity and fear from her character, all in the key of mothers protecting cubs. The fights, according to Flowers, hew closer to alley brawls than ballet—“grab whatever’s nearby and hope it breaks their nose first.” No graceful spins, just pain management and desperation. There’s a scene where Ercell wields a chunk of shell with the kind of wild, feral fury only a mother cornered can muster. Chopra Jonas herself said she hadn’t known women once captained real-life pirate fleets—that is, until the script asked her to grab history by its bruised knuckles. The lineage is bloody and surprisingly real: names like Grace O’Malley and Zheng Yi Sao linger in the background, women pirates who didn’t wait for permission to take charge.Splinters seem almost a requirement on this set, thanks to a house where every floorboard threatens mutiny. Not even movie magic can soften the blows when the choreography is dictated by what the Caymans would have actually offered: stray conch shells, salt-heavy planks, and open wounds. Chopra Jonas admits the fight scenes were less “action star fantasy” and more “emergency room reality”—the price of going off the studio map.Karl Urban brings his own flavor to Connor, a man whose past with the East India Trading Company feels less like a backstory and more like an open sore. Ex-empire man, forced into piracy by irrelevance—bitterness becomes him. Urban leans into that wounded-tyrant energy, creating a character as magnetic as he is unpleasant. Any warmth between Connor and Ercell has long since been scraped away, leaving only the grit of betrayal.There have been whispers, understandably, about the film’s bloody, unapologetic edge. With the Russo Brothers producing and zero appetite for smoothing things out, the violence here is pungent and necessary—stripped of the fantasy gloss that used to paper over the ugliness. A conch shell isn’t just a metaphor, it’s a weapon and a warning.Of course, it’s not just about the body count. What stands out, in the battered sunlight of Flowers’ lens, is the price exacted by survival—especially for women who claw their way out of violence only to have it come knocking years later. The film meditates, quietly but firmly, on the tolls paid for peace, and all the ways old wounds insist on being reopened.Those still expecting a perky parrot or a wink at “yo-ho-ho” will come away windburned. The Bluff refuses to let nostalgia steer. Even its supposed egalitarianism is shown through a lens of mutual utility—nobody’s here for a handshake unless there’s a knife up the sleeve.With 2025 approaching and audiences publicly tiring of safe, formulaic blockbusters, The Bluff lands as bracingly out-of-step. Its heroine is less captain than coming storm, a human tempest swinging shells and secrets in equal measure. When the fighting starts, and it will, the film strips away every artifice—leaving only the raw, unsteady calculus of survival. It’s not pretty, but then, neither is the ocean after a storm. As they say in the Caymans, the sea remembers.