It worries me when I have never heard of the director, and that is certainly the case in regard to Michael O'Herlihy, whom I know not from the traditional bar of soap. After watching DESPERATE VOYAGE, I would be desperate, with nothing else to watch, if ever I watched any of his stuff again.
DESPERATE VOYAGE is the ultimate example of shoestring TV production, filmed haphazardly with low quality film, and obviously no retakes. I suppose the poor VHS copy did not help, either.
Canadian-born Christopher Plummer, a best supporting actor Oscar winner, deserved better than to play a Cajun from down south USA, mixing French with heavily accented English as he engages in piracy at sea.
The plot is preposterous. A couple (Cliff Potts and Christine Belford) take another couple (lovely Lara Parker and weak Nicholas Pryor) on their boat but Parker feels unwell, keeps retching and - bad idea! - because they are 12 hours away from land, Potts puts out a call for assistance, so the couple can be taken to land. Why they could not just take their pals and plonk them on land beats me, especially after learning later that they have 12 hours' worth of fuel in the tank.
So they place themselves at the mercy of merciless, gun-toting and wallet-robbing Cajun pirate Plummer and his nephew, the rather dumb-looking Louis, played by the inevitably evil Jonathan Banks, who would rise to his career peak as the main villain in BEVERLEY HILLS COP a few years later.
Given that all the action unfolds at sea, there is not much you can do to make things even a little bit unpredictable. One saving grace is Parker - pure eye candy at the age of 42 - but in the end her fate goes unknown.
Potts plays the resourceful boat owner with a cheating wife who wants to be forgiven - that is the sole unpredictable twist about the film, but it matters zero in the context of the plot.
Cinematography by John Flinn III rates more desperate than the voyage, clearly all shot on stable studio ground with sea visuals as background - ain't foolin' me, O'Herlihy & Flinn III! ... 4/10.
DESPERATE VOYAGE is the ultimate example of shoestring TV production, filmed haphazardly with low quality film, and obviously no retakes. I suppose the poor VHS copy did not help, either.
Canadian-born Christopher Plummer, a best supporting actor Oscar winner, deserved better than to play a Cajun from down south USA, mixing French with heavily accented English as he engages in piracy at sea.
The plot is preposterous. A couple (Cliff Potts and Christine Belford) take another couple (lovely Lara Parker and weak Nicholas Pryor) on their boat but Parker feels unwell, keeps retching and - bad idea! - because they are 12 hours away from land, Potts puts out a call for assistance, so the couple can be taken to land. Why they could not just take their pals and plonk them on land beats me, especially after learning later that they have 12 hours' worth of fuel in the tank.
So they place themselves at the mercy of merciless, gun-toting and wallet-robbing Cajun pirate Plummer and his nephew, the rather dumb-looking Louis, played by the inevitably evil Jonathan Banks, who would rise to his career peak as the main villain in BEVERLEY HILLS COP a few years later.
Given that all the action unfolds at sea, there is not much you can do to make things even a little bit unpredictable. One saving grace is Parker - pure eye candy at the age of 42 - but in the end her fate goes unknown.
Potts plays the resourceful boat owner with a cheating wife who wants to be forgiven - that is the sole unpredictable twist about the film, but it matters zero in the context of the plot.
Cinematography by John Flinn III rates more desperate than the voyage, clearly all shot on stable studio ground with sea visuals as background - ain't foolin' me, O'Herlihy & Flinn III! ... 4/10.