A female pirate and her companion race against their rivals to find a hidden island that contains a fabulous treasure.
Morgan Adams and her slave, William Shaw, are on a quest to recover the three portions of a treasure map. Unfortunately, the final portion is held by her murderous uncle, Dawg. Her crew is skeptical of her leadership abilities, so she must complete her quest before they mutiny against her. This is made yet more difficult by the efforts of the British crown to end her piratical raids.—Stern
It's 1668 in the waters around Jamaica. Considered a renowned pirate in her own right like her father Black Harry, Morgan Adams, following Harry's death, not only inherits the Morning Star, his ship, which does not sit well with some of the crew, but also his one-third piece of a map indicating a treasure located on Cutthroat Island, the other two pieces which were divided between two of Harry's brothers, Richard and Mordechai. Richard's piece has since fallen into the hands of a fourth brother, the wicked Dawg Brown, whose aim is to find the treasure solely for himself, which means getting his hands on all three pieces of the map. It is in that goal that he was the cause of Harry's death. While Dawg aims to do the same to Mordechai and now Morgan, Morgan has other thoughts including the need to decipher not only the cryptic items on the map, including Cutthroat Island's actual whereabouts, but what the Latin text on it indicates. It is in that vein that she, first, becomes within the sights of British Governor Ainslee who wants his revenge on her, and, second, purchases the service of a slave, William Shaw, who understands the language. A physician by trade, Shaw became merchandise in the slave trade as he turned to what he believed was the more lucrative business of theft and cons. Thus begins a love/hate relationship between Morgan and Shaw, as they jointly and individually try to locate the treasure, all the while needing to best both Ainslee and Dawg, the latter issue probably to the death.—Huggo
Morgan Adams' father's dying gifts to her are his pirate ship and a one-third part of a map of a treasure island - unusually inscribed on his scalp. Thinking herself in need of a Latin scholar to unravel the map, she buys learned slave William Shaw and sets off in search of the rest of the map. However, it is Shaw, obviously with plans of his own, who gets the second part. He's somewhat easier to deal with, though, than the holder of the last part - Morgan's less-than-loving piratical uncle Dawg.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
The film begins in Jamaica in 1668. After bedding and outsmarting a bounty hunter trying to arrest her, female pirate Morgan Adams (Geena Davis) hunts down her uncle and fellow pirate Dawg Brown (Frank Langella), who has captured her father, Black Harry (Harris Yulin), who has one of three pieces of a map to a huge stash of gold on a remote island called Cutthroat Island. Dawg has another piece, having stolen it from the corpse of a third brother, while a fourth brother, Mordachai (George Murcell), has the third. Dawg tries to force Harry to give him the map, but Harry refuses and escapes with Morgan's help, but not before being mortally wounded. Before dying, Harry reveals to his daughter the location of the map piece: on his scalp.
After scalping her dead father for the piece, Morgan, now the captain of her father's ship, the Morning Star, sets out for the treasure. Unfortunately, the instructions appear to be in Latin, which no one on board reads. So, they go to nearby Port Royal to find a translator. There, they learn that one of the slaves up for auction, a con man and thief named William Shaw (Matthew Modine), is fluent in Latin. After threatening a man determined to win, Morgan wins the auction.
Unfortunately, she is recognized from her wanted poster and is chased out of town (which is demolished), along with her crew and Shaw. Humiliated, corrupt Governor Ainslee (Patrick Malahide) vows to find her, either to arrest her or form a partnership for half her profits. To this end, he enlists the help of chronicler John Reed (Maury Chaykin), who often follows pirates to write his books.
The crew then goes to Mordachai in Spittlefield Harbor. Before they can learn where the second piece is however, Dawg appears. A fight ensues, during which Mordachai is killed, Morgan is shot, and Shaw secretly finds the piece and keeps it to himself. After they escape on the Morning Star, Morgan collapses from her wound, but is saved by Shaw, who is a self-proclaimed doctor. During this time, the two start a romance. In addition, Morgan figures out during the escape that the words on the map, when read backwards, spell out half the coordinates to the island.
Eventually, Dawg's ship, the Reaper, bears down on them. Morgan directs the ship toward a coral reef...and a gale. Shaw manages to piece together the location of Cutthroat Island with his and Morgan's piece but is caught and thrown in the brig. During the storm, Reed sends a carrier pigeon revealing their location to Ainslee. Meanwhile, the majority of the crew led by the treacherous Scully (Jimmie F. Skaggs) mutinies against Morgan and shanghai her and those loyal to her in a boat. Ironically, though the boat is wrecked, the tide takes them straight to Cutthroat Island.
As Morgan goes after the treasure, Shaw, who escaped during the storm, steals the last piece from Dawg, who's on the island, but runs into quicksand. Morgan finds him and, after finding out he has the piece, frees him. Together, they find the gold, only for it to be stolen by Dawg, forcing them to jump off a cliff into the tide.
After regaining consciousness, Shaw finds Reed, who leads him into a trap set by Dawg, Ainslee, and the mutineers, who have joined forces and intend to split the gold between them. As Shaw is captured and they make their way out to sea with the gold, Morgan sneaks aboard the Morning Star and retakes it from the mutineers. The crew then tries to sneak attack the Reaper, but Dawg finds them out and attacks. A huge open sea fight ensues, during which Shaw escapes and Ainslee is killed by cannon fire. Morgan eventually boards the Reaper and blows out the ship's bottom to get to the gold. She then duels Dawg while Shaw gets trapped below in rapidly rising water with the treasure.
Eventually, Morgan kills Dawg with a cannon and saves Shaw, forced to abandon the treasure to escape the sinking ship. Luckily, Morgan uses a trick to retrieve the treasure and the newly rich crew sets sail for their next adventure in Madagascar.
