The Ebb Tide (DVD) Robbie Coltrane, Chris Barnes, Steven Mackintosh NEW

This film, made by Granada Television and A&E (though probably snipped slightly for American viewers) and based on a work by R.L. Stevenson, is as much psychological as adventure: three drifters, including a disgraced sea captain (Robbie Coltrane) and an English "Gentleman" who killed a woman in anger (Steve Mackintosh) stuck in the tropics are engaged to pilot a "plague ship" to Australia to deliver a cargo of champagne. Coltrane, who has a disastrous past voyage on his conscience, wants this captaincy to provide personal redemption. His two companions resent his command, and it is through their mischief that the champagne is discovered to be largely bogus and themselves the potential victims of an insurance fraud planned by owners who want the rotting ship to sink en route.A storm brings the ship to an unknown island rich in pearls, whose owner (Nigel Terry) becomes the catalyst for the violent end that takes almost everyone but Coltrane, who finds redemption of a sort through surviving this conflict.