'Cutthroat Island' By Desson Howe Washington Post Staff Writer December 22, 1995

Director: Renny Harlin Cast: Geena Davis; Matthew Modine; Frank Langella; Maury Chaykin; Patrick Malahide; Stan Shaw light violence Compare prices for this movie Find local video stores More movie shopping Save money with NextCard Visa

What the world really needed, according to Geena Davis and husband-filmmaker Renny Harlin, was a pirate picture, starring Davis as a high-seas swashbuckler.

But "Cutthroat Island," which Harlin directed and, yes, Davis stars in, has to rank with scurvy as an appealing experience.

In this lifeless 17th-century adventure, able-bodied pirate Davis inherits her father's galleon. Her dying Dad also bequeaths her a partial treasure map. The map, which includes a Latin inscription, is tattooed on his scalp, so it has to be cut from his head. Learning that Matthew Modine, a professional scoundrel up for slave's auction, knows Latin, she buys him.

It takes a two-hour act of will to keep facing the screen during this moribund movie. Every cliffhanger is enough to make you a cliff jumper. Davis and Modine are almost transcendentally unappealing, as they weather dull sword fights, ship-to-ship exchanges (with treasure-seeking rival Frank Langella) and other action-movie banalities. As for the six rogues who are credited as scriptwriters, they have at least two things to be grateful for: They got paid for this junk and, in Hollywood, there are no gangplanks.

Rated PG-13. Contains light violence.

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