Cutthroat Island Information

Cutthroat Island is a 1995 romantic comedy action adventure film directed by Renny Harlin. The film stars Geena Davis, Matthew Modine, and Frank Langella. The film received mixed reviews from critics and was a major box office bomb. It is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the biggest box office flop of all time. It was the last film Carolco Pictures produced before it went bankrupt.

Plot

The film begins in Jamaica in 1668. After bedding and outsmarting a bounty hunter trying to arrest her, female pirate Morgan Adams hunts down her uncle and fellow pirate Dawg Brown, who has captured her father, Black Harry, who has one of three pieces of a map to a huge stash of gold on a remote island called Cutthroat Island. Dawg has another piece, having stolen it from the corpse of a third brother, Richard, the week before, while a fourth brother, Mordechai, has the third. Dawg tries to force Harry to give him the map, but Harry refuses and escapes with Morgan's help, but not before being mortally wounded. Before dying, Harry reveals to his daughter the location of the map piece: on his scalp.

After scalping her dead father for the piece, Morgan, now the captain of her father's ship, the Morning Star, sets out for the treasure. Unfortunately, the instructions appear to be in Latin, which no one on board reads. So, they go to nearby Port Royal to find a translator. There, they learn that one of the slaves up for auction, a con man and thief named William Shaw, is fluent in Latin. After threatening a man determined to win, Morgan wins the auction. Unfortunately, she is recognized from her wanted poster and is chased out of town (which is demolished), along with her crew and Shaw. Humiliated, corrupt Governor Ainslee vows to find her, either to arrest her or form a partnership for half her profits. To this end, he enlists the help of chronicler John Reed, who often follows pirates to write his books.

The crew then goes to Mordechai in Spittlefield Harbor. Before they can learn where the second piece is however, Dawg appears. A fight ensues, during which Mordechai is killed, Morgan is shot, and Shaw secretly finds the piece and keeps it to himself. After they escape on the Morning Star, Morgan collapses from her wound, but is saved by Shaw, who is a self-proclaimed doctor. During this time, the two start a romance. In addition, Morgan figures out during the escape that the words on the map, when read backwards, spell out half the coordinates to the island.

Eventually, Dawg's ship, the Reaper, bears down on them. Morgan directs the ship toward a coral reef...and a gale. Shaw manages to piece together the location of Cutthroat Island with his and Morgan's piece, but is caught and thrown in the brig. During the storm, Reed sends a carrier pigeon revealing their location to Ainslee. Meanwhile, the majority of the crew led by the treacherous Scully mutinies against Morgan and maroon her and those loyal to her in a boat. Ironically, though the boat is wrecked, the tide takes them straight to Cutthroat Island.

As Morgan goes after the treasure, Shaw, who escaped during the storm, steals the last piece from Dawg, who's on the island, but runs into quicksand. Morgan finds him and, after finding out he has the piece, frees him. Together, they find the gold, only for it to be stolen by Dawg, forcing them to jump off a cliff into the tide.

After regaining consciousness, Shaw finds Reed, who leads him into a trap set by Dawg, Ainslee, and the mutineers, who have joined forces and intend to split the gold between them. As Shaw is captured and they make their way out to sea with the gold, Morgan sneaks aboard the Morning Star and retakes it from the mutineers. The crew then tries to sneak attack the Reaper, but Dawg finds them out and attacks. A huge open sea fight ensues, during which Shaw escapes and Ainslee is killed by cannon fire. Morgan eventually boards the Reaper and blows out the ship's bottom to get to the gold. She then duels Dawg while Shaw gets trapped below in rapidly rising water with the treasure. Eventually, Morgan kills Dawg with a cannon and saves Shaw, forced to abandon the treasure to escape the sinking ship. Luckily, Morgan uses a trick to retrieve the treasure and the newly rich crew sets sail for their next adventure in Madagascar.

Cast

• Geena Davis as Morgan Adams
• Matthew Modine as William Shaw
• Frank Langella as Dawg Brown
• Maury Chaykin as John Reed
• Patrick Malahide as Ainslee
• Stan Shaw as Mr. Glasspoole
• Harris Yulin as "Black" Harry Adams
• Rex Linn as Mr. Blair
• Angus Wright as Captain Trotter
• Ken Bones as Toussant
• Chris Masterson as Bowen
• George Murcell as Mordechai "Fingers" Adams

Production

At the time the film was produced, Geena Davis and director Renny Harlin were married. Harlin convinced producer Mario Kassar to cast Davis, who was known for light comedies, in hopes that it would turn her into an action-adventure star.

Michael Douglas originally agreed to play Shaw in Cutthroat Island under two conditions: filming had to start immediately because he was only available for a limited time, and his character had to have the same amount of screen time as Geena Davis. Douglas eventually pulled out, claiming that Davis' role was expanded at his character's expense. Davis wanted to quit when Douglas did, but she was contractually obligated to finish the film. After Douglas quit, Harlin was so preoccupied with trying to find a male lead that set construction and script work were done without his input. Harlin didn't like what he saw when shooting was set to begin, leading to massive expensive rebuilding and rewriting.

Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, Liam Neeson, Jeff Bridges, Ralph Fiennes, Charlie Sheen, and Michael Keaton all turned down the role of Shaw, before Matthew Modine agreed to do the role, partly because he is an experienced fencer. Oliver Reed was originally cast for a cameo as Mordechai Fingers, but was fired after getting in a bar fight and for mooning at Davis. George Murcell eventually took his place.

Release and reception

Aftermath and legacy

Cutthroat Island had a total cost of $98 million and the total U.S. gross was $10,017,322. It may have been a contributing factor to the demise of the film's production company, Carolco Pictures, and of Davis as a bankable star. It debuted at #13 at the US box office.

In a radio interview in 2011, director Harlin discussed the film's box-office failure. He pointed out that Carolco was already in ruin before Cutthroat Island even began shooting, but had to make the film since financing from foreign investors was already in place. MGM, the film's distributor, was in the process of being sold and thus could not devote itself into financing a marketing campaign for the film. Carolco filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy a month before Cutthroat Island's release.

The abject disaster of Cutthroat Island is also credited with significantly reducing the bank-ability and Hollywood production of pirate-themed films, which only recovered with the production of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl in 2003.

Harlin was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director for his work on the film, but lost to Paul Verhoeven for Showgirls. The film has a 44% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 32 reviews.

Music

By contrast, the film's swashbuckling music by John Debney has been critically acclaimed, and compared with the works of Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

Video game

See Cutthroat Island (video game) for more information A side-scroller released for major platforms of the time to tie-in with the film.