Nate and Hayes works perfectly as escapist fare for a rainy day’s viewing.
After the box-office success of 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, a long line of what could politely be called “copycat” pictures began to pour out of Hollywood. One of the most-overlooked and underrated is 1983’s Nate and Hayes, which happened to be released by the same studio responsible for Raiders. As such, it was released with little fanfare in late 1983 so it wouldn’t steal thunder from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the forthcoming sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Sometime in the mid to late 1800s, Captain “Bully” Hayes (Tommy Lee Jones) transports a young couple to an island in the South Pacific. Nathaniel (Michael O’Keefe) and Sophie (Jenny Seagrove) are to join Nathaniel’s missionary parents to spread Christianity to the natives. The pair are to be married on the island but Sophie finds herself attracted to the roguish Hayes during the trip. Hayes is quite a contrast to Nate, her Bible-toting, soon-to-be husband.
Shortly after dropping the pair on the island, the smitten Hayes decides that he is going to go back and rescue Sophie from a life of certain boredom. When Hayes and his crew arrive, they find the island has been pillaged. The natives are gone — rounded up for the slave trade — and Sophie has been kidnapped. Eventually, Nathaniel and Hayes team up to rescue Sophie from the clutches of Ben Pease, Hayes’ former partner turned slaver. Along the way, they’ll not only encounter Pease’s men, but an armored German steamship and its crew, and the forces of a native warlord.
If you’re only familiar with Tommy Lee Jones from movies like Men in Black, The Fugitive, or No Country for Old Men, you’ll be surprised with this younger, swashbuckling version. Jones plays the character with a wink and a smile and he makes it work. Michael O’Keefe, who’s probably best known for his role in Caddyshack, undergoes a rather unlikely and immediate transition from straitlaced, man-of-the-cloth to sword-fighting, gun-toting rapscallion with no explanation how that’s possible. Yet, this odd pairing exudes a lighthearted chemistry that propels the movie forward. That is, once it manages to get going.
The script, written by John Hughes (yes, that John Hughes) and David Odell, is full of one-liners and ridiculous problems that require equally ridiculous solutions. Unfortunately, the biggest flaw is that it takes about 40 minutes to ramp up the action. Once it does, Nate and Hayes works perfectly as escapist fare for a rainy day’s viewing. It’s impossible to take this movie seriously. That’s a compliment because that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be.
It might have been meant to capitalize on the Indiana Jones craze of the time but Nate and Hayes builds a fun — if unexceptional — little world of its own.
3.5 out of 5.0 stars
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