Is there a love strong enough that can withstand one pirate believing that her boyfriend pirate murdered her father in an effort to get revenge on her and her father because she bested him in humiliating fashion during their epic sword fight to determine who the new captain of the Santa Maria would be?
Of course the answer is normally, “fudge no!” What sort of pirate gets beat by his girlfriend and then mocked by her father and doesn’t come back later on and burn their entire freaking village to the ground and then salt the earth just to make sure they get the message? Some receipts just have to be issued in bloody triplicate!
But this isn’t a normal pirate love affair between a swarthy, lice-ridden, insecure brute and his barrel-chested, toothless 17th Century version of a used up biker mama!
William Scott is scrumptiously tan with statuesque piles of hair and only wants to prove his innocence to his old lady, even if that means surrendering the Santa Maria to her and putting his fate in her hands. For her part, Consuelo has the hottest poop deck in all the seven seas, smolderingly dark features and somehow even looks hotter when she dresses up for a ball, pretending to be a pirate, even though she really is a pirate!
The most important part of their relationship though, and frankly, the film itself, is that both William and Consuelo love wearing over the knee hooker boots!
That’s right boot boys! Your prayers have been answered! Especially if you’re the open-minded sort who doesn’t mind whether it’s a sexy babe or a tasty hunk prancing around in the boots! That the film is full of violence, big ass boats, and villainous dandies simply gives you an excuse to subject your non-boot obsessed friends to the film, too!
Our boot beauties find themselves in this mess because Consuelo’s father is old and feeble as a pirate captain and William calls him out on this. Old Timer finally acknowledges this and sets up the contest to see who will take over the ship. William easily bests a dude who turns traitor as soon as he gets the chance, though this should come as no surprise since he is a bald schlub, just as it should come as no surprise that he is really the one who killed Consuelo’s father and framed William for it.
William is only saved from being hanged by his fellow pirates by an invasion of Spanish soldiers. He ultimately escapes with the Santa Maria and embarks on a pirating career that regardless of how successful it is, is ultimately quite hollow, thus causing him to brood and not enjoy all the stuff he steals from other people. Consuelo tricks her way into stealing a Spanish ship of her own and becomes famous for her unrelenting pirating brutality which is clearly just a coping mechanism for her shattered heart!
Things turn a corner for these two once William gets information from a Spanish captain (the same one Consuelo stole her ship from) about the pirate who turned traitor and is currently being housed in the fortress of the local Spanish official. One ill-advised attempted invasion of the fort and kidnapping of the traitor later and William finds himself being tortured by the traitor for information on where Consuelo’s father hid all his treasure.
By this time, Consuelo has teamed up with William to get revenge and comes up with her own plan to free William and pay back the traitor – attend the gala ball dressed up as the sexiest mask-wearing pirate in all the Spanish territories!
After convincing the moron in charge of everything (he’s played for laughs throughout the film, obsessed with medals, awards and his image, more than anything else) to let her have a peek at real live pirate in a real live dungeon, he shows her where William is being held and the final battle begins in earnest.
Italian adventure film pro Luigi Capuano (Sword in the Shadows, Revenge of the Gladiators) does everything right in Tiger of the Seven Seas, populating his film with nice shots of the galleons, large chaotic battles, handsome leads, and villains who while they aren’t really threatening, are quite entertaining. He also keeps the humorous characters from devolving into outright goofiness and overpowering the seriousness of the plot. Yes, he includes the maddeningly obligatory dance sequence, but it moves the story forward and features the masked Consuelo, so even that works!
Even better, there’s a scene where the Spanish captain is talking to Consuelo without knowing her true identity and states that when he catches this lady pirate he’s going to spank her, while Consuelo laughs and says she’d like to see that! God, wouldn’t we all! Just please leave the boots on!
© 2013 MonsterHunter
