''Pyrates'' is a 1991

comedy film The comedy film is a film genre that emphasizes humor. These films are designed to amuse audiences and make them laugh. Films in this genre typically have a happy ending, with dark comedy being an exception to this rule. Comedy is one of the o ...

, starring

Kevin Bacon Kevin Norwood Bacon (born July 8, 1958) is an American actor. Known for various roles, including leading man characters, Bacon has received numerous accolades such as a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Bacon made his featu ...

and

Kyra Sedgwick Kyra Minturn Sedgwick ( ; born August 19, 1965) is an American film and television actress. She is best known for her starring role as Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson on the crime drama ''The Closer'' (2005–2012), for which she won a Golden ...

about a couple who experience

pyrokinesis Pyrokinesis is a List of psychic abilities, psychic ability allowing a person to create and control fire with the mind. As with other parapsychological phenomena, there is no conclusive evidence in support of the actual existence of pyrokinesis. ...

after having sex. Directed and written by Noah Stern, the film was released on

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

on December 18, 1991.

Plot

When Ari (

) and Sam (

) first meet they realise that there is chemistry between them. When they have sex with each other, they experience

. However, as their love affair does not run smoothly, their friends Liam ( Bruce Martyn Payne) and Pia (

Kristin Dattilo Kristin Dattilo (born November 30, 1970) is an American television actress, known for playing manager Yola Gaylen on '' The Chris Isaak Show'' from 2001 to 2004 and detective Barbara Gianna in season 3 of ''Dexter''. Early life Dattilo was b ...

) intervene to try to help. At one point when Sam is angry with Ari, Liam helps Ari to serenade her with a rendition the

Soft Cell Soft Cell are an English synth-pop duo who came to prominence in the early 1980s. The duo consists of vocalist Marc Almond and instrumentalist David Ball (electronic musician), David Ball. The band are primarily known for their 1981 hit versio ...

song ''

Tainted Love "Tainted Love" is a song composed by Ed Cobb, formerly of American group the Four Preps, which was originally recorded by Gloria Jones in 1964. In 1981, the song attained worldwide fame after being covered and reworked by British synth-pop du ...

''.

Cast

as Ari *

as Sam * Bruce Martyn Payne as Liam *

as Pia *Buckley Harris as Dr. Weiss * Deborah Falconer as Rivkah *David Pressman as Carlton * Raymond O'Connor as Fireman * Byrne Piven as Rabbi Lichtenstein *Ernie Lee Banks as Wee Willie *

Mickey Jones Mickey Jones (June 10, 1941 – February 7, 2018) was an American musician and actor. He played drums with acts such as Trini Lopez and Bob Dylan, with whom he played on his 1966 world tour. He became a founding member of The First Edition ...

as Wisconsin Del * Petra Verkaik as Basia *

Clifford David Clifford David (June 30, 1928 – November 30, 2017) was an American actor, singer, and coach. His career began in the 1950s, with early live television appearances leading to roles in Broadway musicals. He also played character roles in tel ...

as Advisor * Tom Adams as

John Rackham John Rackham (hanged 18 November 1720), perhaps known as Calico Jack, was a pirate captain operating in the Bahamas and Jamaica during the early 18th century. Rackham was active in 1720, towards the end of the "Golden Age of Piracy". He is mos ...

(uncredited)

Reception

Reviews for ''Pyrates'' were generally negative. Derek Adams of '' Time Out'' criticized the film for containing few laughs, stating that "the first time a lava lamp explodes, the second time round though, and the joke's already gone too far". No Byline stated that 'with the principals coming across as charmlessly self-centred, this cornucopia of copulation is, despite an attempt at kooky episodic to-camera chit-chat, more hot air than hot stuff'. A reviewer for ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

'' stated that 'as a contemporary love story, ''Pyrates'' is well conceived and often sharply observed'. The ''

'' reviewer stated that '

Bacon Bacon is a type of Curing (food preservation), salt-cured pork made from various cuts of meat, cuts, typically the pork belly, belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central in ...

and Sedgwick are both charming and exasperating as the modern lovers, a combination of self-centered innocence and mannered brittleness that rings all too true'. The ''

'' reviewer also commented that 'the supporting cast, particularly Bruce Martyn Payne and

as the friends who find themselves drawn into Ari and Sam's affair despite their best efforts to stay out, are uniformly good' but 'their work is undercut at every turn by the aggressively clever style' of the film'. Ultimately, the ''

'' reviewer thought that 'the director's smirk colors virtually every scene, and it's tough to get past'. The effect, in their view, 'is that of a glossy thesis film by a precocious and talented student who still needs to learn that all witty ideas are not created equal'. John Ferguson stated that

and

gave 'it their best shot, but director Noah Stern doesn't take the original idea anywhere interesting and, in the end, it's far too self-consciously wacky for its own good'. Ferguson also stated that 'Englishman abroad Bruce Martyn Payne - he would drop the middle name for ''

Passenger 57 ''Passenger 57'' is a 1992 American action thriller film directed by Kevin Hooks. The film stars Wesley Snipes and Bruce Payne, with Snipes portraying a security consultant who finds himself forced to foil a plot to free a captive terrorist durin ...

'' - offers solid support as Bacon's best chum'. Another reviewer stated that the film was a 'real oddity' and part of a 'peculiar mini-spate of films about pyrokinesis' in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which began with '' Firestarter''.

Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic, film historian, and author. He is known for his book of film capsule reviews, '' Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'', published from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film criti ...

described the film as 'crudely scripted' and 'ineptly directed'. Another reviewer described the film as 'forgettable'.

AllMovie AllMovie (previously All Movie Guide) is an online database with information about films, television programs, television series, and screen actors. , AllMovie.com and the AllMovie consumer brand are owned by RhythmOne. History AllMovie was ...

's Sandra Brennan awarded the film a score of one and a half stars out of five.

Home media

The film has been released on DVD in Australia.

References

External links

* *{{Rotten-tomatoes, id=pyrates 1991 films 1991 romantic comedy films Films shot in Chicago Films shot in Los Angeles American romantic comedy films 1990s English-language films 1990s American films English-language romantic comedy films Films scored by Peter Himmelman