Amazon seems to have set a clear tone for what it’s aiming for with original movies. Once the premier venue for director-driven arthouse fare — remember Manchester by the Sea? — the tech giant’s streaming platform, Prime Video, is now shifting much of its resources to producing mainstream genre movies featuring stars with proven appeal. Recently, Prime Video released the action movie The Wrecking Crew, headlined by Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista; before that, it released the Kevin James and Alan Ritchson vehicle Playdate. The streamer’s latest offering is a big-budget swashbuckler starring two performers who’ve headlined some of its biggest titles over the years. The movie in question has been ruling the viewership charts ever since its debut last week, giving no quarter to the competition.
We’re talking, of course, about The Bluff. Directed by Frank E. Flowers, the film stars Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Karl Urban in the lead roles. Chopra Jonas, a Bollywood icon who made her Hollywood debut over a decade ago, previously played one of the lead roles in Prime Video’s $300 million spy series Citadel, executive produced by the Russo Brothers, who also executive produced The Bluff. Urban, on the other hand, plays one of the leads in The Boys, arguably the most popular original series on the service. In The Bluff, he stars as a villainous pirate who lands on the shores of an island where his former partner-in-crime — Chopra Jonas’ character — has been hiding out under a new identity with her husband and son. His arrival pits them against one another, and unleashes the protagonist’s long-dormant inner John Wick.
‘The Bluff’ Opened to Mixed Reviews
The Bluff opened to mixed reviews and is currently sitting at a 69% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The film’s success — according to FlixPatrol, it remains the number one Prime Video film globally — coincided with a viewership spike for the swashbuckling Starz show Black Sails, which ran from 2014 to 2017. The show was headlined by Toby Stephens and featured the late Ray Stevenson as the infamous pirate known as Blackbeard. The Bluff is set toward the end of the pirate era in the Caribbean. Meanwhile, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is eying a return following several years of inaction. Johnny Depp, who was made persona non grata because of his personal troubles over the last decade, is reportedly weighing a return to the franchise that made him one of the biggest stars in the world and earned him an Oscar nomination. You can watch The Bluff on Prime Video. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
- Release Date
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February 25, 2026
- Runtime
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101 Minutes
- Director
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Frank E. Flowers