Gary Busey had his moments in bad action movies (mostly in the 80’s), but “Act of Piracy” is so boring, bad and predictable that I would be surprised if many people remembered it. It was one of the last Busey’s attempts to play good, family guy before he switched to bad-guys roles. Seeing this movie, I am surprised he hadn’t it come earlier.
Film starts on some yacht carelessly cruising the sea. It is the yacht of Ted Andrews (played by Gary Busey). Ted is obviously not enjoying the cruise. He is trying to reach a certain Sandy by the phone. She hung up on him when she heard his voice. That really have pissed him off so, in the next scene, Ted storms into Sandy’s house by breaking a front door. Busey style, hell yeah!!! It turns out that Sandy (played by Belinda Bauer) is his ex-wife. Her current boyfriend Dennis (played by Dennis Casey Park) is also there, but he does nothing about Ted’s busting in (*cough* pussy). Apparently, Ted wants to get married (seems to me that he just repeats a mistake he already did). He found a buyer for his “Barracuda” yacht. Actually, girl named Laura came to him and asked if yacht is for sale. That is how he met his girlfriend. Laura said that she knows Australian billionaire who is interested in “Barracuda”. Buyer offers good amount of money, cash payment on delivery, with money expenses for sailing around Sydney. So, Ted decides to take his children on cruise. Sandy refuses his request, but only for a short time, since Ted threatened her with reporting Dennis to police for stealing and cheating on people. This caused a brief hysterical seizure to Sandy.
This is not what you think it is.
We are back to Barracuda now. Ted and his girlfriend Laura (played by Nancy Mulford) are standing on the deck. Laura seems to be a bit nervous about meeting his family. Her fears were solid based since she got chewed out by Ted’s kids Tracy and Mark during dinner that evening. Ted’s Brother C.W. (played by Douglas Bristow) and his wife Nadine (played by Nadine O’Brian) are also there. Also, we find out that Ted is Vietnam veteran and Navy Seal Instructor (you can’t go wrong with putting ex-agents into a movie). Later that night, shits are starting to happen. One of crew members, Scotty, comes in Ted’s room and informs him that there is some speedboat following them. Ted goes to ivestigate leaving Scoty and Laura alone in the room. Laura takes that opportunity and shoots Scotty in the back with silencer gun. I bet you didn’t see that coming! Laura continues her killing spree. She enters the room where C.W. and Nadine are sleeping and kills them in coldblooded manner. Next on her hit list are crew members and she kills them one by one, including dumbass dude who had easily overpowered her, knocked her on the floor and then started running away, without even previously having her disarmed. Of course, result of such action is bullet in his back. After cabins, now deck is next place to be cleaned up. But not in the old fashion women way. More crew members died there by Laura’s hand, including Ted, who went overboard after getting shot. It seems that cleaning is done, so Laura helps gang from the speedboat to board in. Gang leader, Jack Wilcox (played by Ray Sharkey; best known for his role in “Mummy”) is her real boyfriend. The yacht has been cleaned for him, and the only survivors are kids, Mark and Tracy. After an argue they decided to keep them (but not in adoption way). And somewhere in the sea, Ted is floating on a segment of the speedboat wreck, which Jack had detonated after getting aboard on Barracuda.
Ted is in the hospital now, pulling his connections in order to find the missing yacht and the kids. His ex-wife Sandy helps him as well. Despite Agent Johnson’s opposing, both of them decide to put in air video in which Ted offers a reward for any information about missing yacht, And kids, I suppose. Meanwhile, on the other side, Jack, Laura and rest of the gang are planning several terrorist attacks. Taking over Madagascar, for example…. But not before they exploit a fight between Greece and Zimbabwe. So, next scene takes us to Harare, where Jack and Laura are having a meeting with one of their contacts. That’s not so important, so I’ll do fast forward to only scene in the movie that is worth of mentioning. After the meeting was over, Jack and Laura went to their hotel room, where Jack is giving her what she needs. She seems completely satisfied, so she goes onto balcony to smoke a cigarette, while Jack turns the TV on. In that very moment, Ted’s video appears on the screen, including photos of yacht and kids. Now read carefully… Ted’s turns off the TV, goes to the balcony, starts kissing and squeezing Laura, takes her in his arms, and drops her off the balcony to her death!!! And all of that with a romantic music playing in background!!! What a way for breaking up!!!
When you use a product, you throw away an envelope!
Ted receives a call from a hotel manager in Harare. He travels there superfast and that’s where the chasing game really begins. And after identifying Laura’s body, he gained another personal reason for vengeance. Yeah, right. Like missing his own kids is not reason enough. Soon, the first encounter with gang members occurs, but Busey kills them all while driving Volkswagen’s Golf 1. Jack and the rest of the gang are now in Greece, and Ted follows them using his contacts and other anonymous people who wanted to help. He locates the missing yacht but now he needs to infiltrate. And what would be better way to do it than sending his ex-wife Sandy (with who, btw, he renewed the old flames and who is about to be an ex-ex-wife) to seduce Jack. Not a bad idea, since he ditched off the balcony his last bitch. So, the story repeats. But, with one difference. It seems that Jack isn’t as stupid as he looks like. He discovers that Laura is Ted’s wife, so he uses her to capture Ted as well. Ted got some problems with being tide up, but once when he got loose, nothing could stop him from having his face used as a punching bag, killing singlehandedly entire gang, rescuing his children and wife, and going into the sunset to that damn cruise he always wanted. The end.
Living punching bag.
Conclusion: This movie is so uninteresting, boring and predictable that during it’s watching I came several time in temptation of turning it off and making up the ending of movie for review purposes. I really doubt that anyone would notice it. Everything from the stunts, production, sound, soundtrack, picture is cheap and pointless. Apart of slutty Laura being chucked out of hotel balcony, none other thing in this movie is worth of mentioning. I strongly recommend that you should stay away of this movie as far as possible!!!