Matthew Modine Walks The Plank

Cutthroat Island, Renny Harlin's pirate movie from 1995, is the biggest box office flop of all time, according to the Guinness book of records. In the day it cost $115 million to produce and took in a mere $10 upon it's release. It sank it's production company (behind Total Recall and Terminator 2)and almost ruined star Geena Davis as a bankable star (it took a further collaboration with her then hubby, Harlin, to finish the job).

Even before production, the signs weren't good. Because of the unoriginal, humorless script which presented the male lead as a selfish, struggling-to-catch-up sidekick...Harlin couldn't attract a bankable A-list star to the project (Michael Douglas, for one, walked away). Meaning that along with his wife Harlin cast Matthew Modine, the nerdy star of Full Metal Jacket. At this time there hadn't been a hit Pirate movie in decades and female action stars didn't yet exist in mainstream cinema (it would take a few more years for the Buffy effect to kick in). Indeed the leads aren't up to carrying the massive adventure movie; Davis is ok, but wooden and awkward on occasion while Modine barely make an impact in what should be a sparky, fiery double act.

But...and it's a big but...Cutthroat Island is amazing on a technical level, giving the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies a run for their money in scale and scope. It's huge. Three full size tall ships. Two Jamaican towns...both blown to crap with canons and gunpowder. Storms. A carriage chase. Bar fights. The film looks incredible; gritty, lush photography, faultless effects miniatures and John Debney's sweeping score...still his best.

Like Jurassic Park two years before, the idea here was to revive an extinct genre using the techniques and style of modern cinema. So Harlin injects all the slow-motion and explosions he can muster (truly mixing the 90's bullshit action movie with a pirate blockbuster). With the added brilliance of Frank Langella's baddie Dawg, it's amazing in retrospect that this didn't make more money. In today's market, where Stephen Sommers can shit out an overblown action epic in his sleep, Cutthroat would easily earn back it's budget at the box office, if released this summer. Even with the curse of the Modine.