The Island (1980)

(In French, On Cable TV, February 2021) Michael Caine’s career is so long and varied that his filmography has anything and everything in it, from the best to the worst. Fortunately, he’s usually charismatic enough to make even the terrible films somewhat watchable, and it’s that spirit that does sustain The Island through its dodgier moments. Caine here plays a journalist who, while investigating the Bermuda Triangle (remember that?), discovers a long-lost colony of pirates cut off from the world but with a steady job of hijacking ships. The ludicrousness of the concept can’t readily be assigned to the usual studio meddling — the screenplay is by novelist Peter Benchley adapting his own novel. But if the result is too contrived to be believable, the entire thing has its rewards — notably a climactic sequence in which a teeth-clenching Caine machine-guns an entire crew of pirates. It’s not much, but it’s an anthology moment for his fans. Otherwise, director Michael Ritchie’s The Island is forgettable early-1980s fluff, not entirely sure of its tone (horror or thriller?) and too far-fetched to be taken seriously.