Nate and Hayes (1983)

Directed by Ferdinand Fairfax. Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Michael O’Keefe, Jenny Seagrove, Max Phipps, Grant Tilly, Peter Rowley, William Johnson, Prince Tui Teka, Bruce Allpress, Pudji Waseso. [PG]

Limp adventure of South Pacific buccaneer Jones and missionary O’Keefe defying the slave-trading pirate (Phipps) who kidnapped O’Keefe’s fiancée (Seagrove), of which Jones is also interested. Tongue-in-cheek but far too inconsistent as entertainment, rating hardly anything at all on the action front (even the swashbuckling scenes are mundane), and the humor doesn’t fare much better, trying for a faintly contemporary edge to the dialogue and behavior without ever resorting to winking directly at the camera, though O’Keefe looks eager to do so. Isolated scenes, ideas, and contraptions provide fleeting amusement (feisty island natives, an ironclad warship, etc.), but it’s assembled without care or style, and never gets off the ground…or should it be said that the sails never unfurl? It’s not usually a good sign in an escapist picture when the liveliest sequence occurs during the denouement. Also known as Savage Islands.

41/100