Review of Captain Jack

Introduction

It’s hard to get excited about this: bitter, surly, but essentially nice Bob Hoskins (the eponymous captain) rallies a crew of disparate, eccentric but essentially nice seaside folk to celebrate the anniversary of his beloved Captain Scoresby, who’s been usurped in history by the more famous Captain Cook, by re-treading the voyage to the Arctic Circle once set by him. So, Jack and his crew set sail on the oxymoronically named ‘Yorkshire Beauty’ and before you know it, the scene is set for onboard romance, character conflict, self-discovery, softening of crusty edges and adventure on the high-seas (or, whatever the budget can afford) in this fluffy, undernourished, vaguely tedious but essentially nice movie.

Video

Pretty good, the colours are a bit washed-out, and there are some traces of compression, but there is excellent detail and contrast.

Audio

A workable, if unremarkable stereo track.

Features

A trailer, which does little more than make it graphically clear why no-one went to see this.

Conclusion

Despite more use of the word ‘bugger’ than just about any other film in history, this is unremarkable inoffensive stuff. That said, it’s reasonably watchable froth, mostly for being a near flawless exercise in count-the-cliché: bureaucratic baddie Patrick Malahide scowls at all this frivolous self-liberation with a Tory’s jealousy, cosseted mild-mannered husband Emmett (David Troughton) vies for some excitement, hunky drifter Peter MacDonald strikes the fancy of modest chip-shop girl Tessa (Sadie Frost) while Maureen Lipman stands by the shore, worrying a lot. Oh, and a couple of old-dears do the cooking.

A lot of this is horribly saccharine, (there’s only so many puppy-love glances between Frost and McDonald I can stomach) and there’s not nearly enough plot in the anorexic narrative to sustain the running time, but it’s not quite bad enough to warrant another scathing case of the “worst British movie since last week” tag. The Whitby setting may make every character sound like Scrooge McDuck but it also lends the film a relaxed pace that suits the laconic style of Robert Young’s direction.

Although the cast consists almost completely of people made famous by advertising other people’s products, most of them deliver way above the film’s demands: Hoskins can do this sort of thing in his sleep and does it well enough, although his sheepish gestures do begin to grate. Lipman is especially good, one only wishes she had something worthwhile to do, Hell, even Frost is watchable. A basic, unhurried, sappy film that won’t rock anybody’s world, but there’s worse ways to kill a couple of hours.