1980 Week: The Island

Despite the massive success of two films based on his books, Jaws (1975) and The Deep (1977), all it took to derail the building of Peter Benchley into a Hollywood brand name was the colossal failure of The Island. In fact, The Island did horrible things to the careers of nearly everyone involved, including star Michael Caine and director Michael Ritchie. Even though it was made on a significant budget of $22 million, the silly, turgid, and violent movie is little more than a second-rate exploitation flick, and the plot is so far-fetched as to border on camp. The “hero” of the piece is a prickly UK-born journalist named Blair Maynard (Caine), who travels to the Caribbean in order to solve the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. Inexplicably, given the possible dangers of the mission, Maynard brings along his estranged young son, Justin (Jeffrey Frank), hoping for some family bonding. The intrepid reporter soon learns that an island in the middle of the Triangle is home to an ancient band of French pirates, who have been attacking ships for centuries, building an insular society from plundered goods and perpetuating their line by inbreeding with a handful of females. The leader of the gang is a ruthless criminal named Nau (David Warner), who kidnaps Blair’s son and brainwashes the boy into becoming some sort of heir apparent. None of this makes much sense. Yet the ludicrous nature of The Island’s plot wouldn’t matter all that much if the movie provided thrills. Unfortunately, Ritchie was asleep at the wheel, filming events in the flat visual style of a ’70s TV show and letting performers veer into cartoony excess. Caine, for instance, delivers one of his patented “when all else fails, scream” performances. The film’s costumes and sets look cheap and random, with no overriding design aesthetic connecting the elements, and the story’s decent into Straw Dogs-style malarkey about a civilized man turning savage feels trite and unsavory. Worst of all, the movie’s dialogue is often alarmingly stupid. (There’s a reason Benchley’s original scripts for Jaws and The Deep were rewritten by professional screenwriters, but at least he shouldered the blame for this one alone.) Ultimately, the best thing about The Island may be the film’s slam-bang poster, which promises supernatural excitement that is not present in the movie itself.

The Island: LAME