@rockmarooned Published Feb. 26, 2026, 8:45 a.m. ET Where to Stream: The Bluff Powered by Reelgood More On: priyanka chopra Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Bluff’ on Amazon Prime Video, an Action-Heavy, Brutally Violent Pirate Flick Starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas Where Was ‘The Bluff’ Movie Filmed? Discover ‘The Bluff’ Filming Locations for the Priyanka Chopra Movie Stream It Or Skip It: ‘A Very Jonas Christmas Movie’ on Disney+, The Holiday Movie Everyone Should Be Watching This Year Were Joe Jonas’ Real-Life Daughters In ‘A Very Jonas Christmas Movie’? Priyanka Chopra Jonas, star of the new Prime Video pirate action thriller The Bluff, has made around 10 English-language fiction features, and starred in two glossy espionage thriller series for American TV. Based on these numbers, and the quality of movies like Love Again and We Can Be Heroes, you might assume that she’s a streaming-universe star, one of those actors who makes enhanced TV movies for a loyal following that would probably not set foot in a movie theater (at least as far as the Love Again box office numbers bear out). And that wouldn’t be an entirely inaccurate description of Chopra Jonas’s career in North America over the past decade or so. But it wouldn’t take into account the fullness of her career, where she has become the highest-paid actress in India, appearing in over 30 movies in the past 24 years – and that’s not even counting her various cameos and “special appearances” where she turns up for a single song.
By virtue of starring in multiple films and TV shows, Chopra Jonas has actually achieved a level of crossover success that most stars in the Indian film industry might not dare dream of. What she’s crossed over into, however, can be rough sailing even for experienced stars. It’s the kind of contemporary fame that can make a major star look chintzy even as she enjoys global name-brand recognition.
Take, for example, The Bluff, Chopra Jonas’s latest streaming vehicle. It is easily her most accomplished English-language feature as a star; she had a featured role in the excellent legacy sequel The Matrix Resurrections, but it wasn’t her movie. The Bluff is; she plays a former pirate who has since settled down to a Caribbean island as the “golden age of piracy,” so-called, winds down. But when pirates from her past catch up with her and threaten her family, she goes into righteous action-hero mode and exacts bloody retribution on anyone who dares darken her homestead’s door.
Those years on Quantico and Citadel, the latter of which is, like The Bluff, an Amazon project produced by the Russo Brothers, seem to have paid off; Chopra Jonas seems more than comfortable in the modern American action-movie idiom, which all but requires John Wick-style bloody combat and, when women are in the lead, often a don’t-you-dare-touch-my-children righteousness. It’s the latter where The Bluff feels a little shruggier; its lead actress makes a convincing action figure, but if you think of cool stuff for a lady pirate to do, fiercely protecting her son and her sister-in-law do not exactly top the list.
It’s that aspect of her performance in The Bluff that feels a little overly studied, and the whole movie, fun as it is, seems determined to show off almost too much range for its star. So we have wistful romantic flashbacks to position her as a romantic lead, bloody action scenes to make sure it’s clear she’s a badass, righteous anger over various deaths and threats, and a few tasteful hints of not-quite-nudity to show off her body, but in a classy way. Put together, it’s giving J-Lo, both in the sense that Chopra Jonas is an ageless and charismatic beauty, and in the sense that she’s chosen a role seemingly to maximize her self-flattery. Her character seemingly isn’t even allowed to process much sense of guilt over bringing her past to her family’s home; she’s too busy being literally the best at every action and emotion. (Perhaps we start calling her Cho-Jo?)
There can be a similar muchness to contemporary Indian cinema, with action, melodrama, romance, crime, drama, and comedy coexisting comfortably. But The Bluff isn’t a maximalist extravaganza; it’s just a silly pirate thriller that takes its star’s branding a little too seriously. It doesn’t help that it’s produced by the Russo Brothers, who have become accidental specialists in streaming fugazi cinema meant to resemble movies you hazily recall enjoying. By those diminished standards, The Bluff is downright terrific. It’s definitely better than anything the Russos have directed for various streamers.
It’s also a better pure showcase for Chopra Jonas than Heads of State, her previous Prime Video movie, where she’s there for a bait-and-switch-and-unswitch operation, appearing to get surprised-killed in the first scene before returning in the second half of the film. Her character isn’t much (she’s Idris Elba’s love interest who also… loves puns?) but she does get to do some fight scenes and grabs the spotlight for one of the best moments in the film, starring in a rapid-fire mini-montage explaining how she survived from her seeming death and made her way back to the narrative.
These Amazon actioners in turn mark a massive improvement from the appalling Love Again, a soppy rom-com so wilted that it made an actress with two decades of experience regress to neophyte levels. With that movie serving as an early American vehicle for Chopra Jonas, is it any wonder that she might choose subsequent projects with a Lopez-style increase in image-burnishing control? It’s probably frustrating that not long after American companies became seemingly more open to the idea of embracing stars from other cultures, the star market in general took an IP-abetted nosedive. Even someone as established as Lopez can’t always tell the difference between good movies, bad movies, and an insane vanity project. This has left the American-cinema version of Priyanka Chopra Jonas as something like a shiny label, floating from product to product, unsure of what exactly to sell.
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn podcasting at www.sportsalcohol.com. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Guardian, among others.
