St. Ives

Miramax has been taken to task for buying up the rights to films, and then, unsure how to market them, letting them languish on the shelf. Case in point, this 1998 buried treasure based on the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. Jean-Marc Barr stars as Capt. St. Ives, a dashing Napoleonic soldier and "good for nothing blaggard" who is captured by the British. While imprisoned, he is recruited by his captor (Richard E. Grant) to teach him "the language of love" to impress a local girl (Anna Friel). Eventually, he is also reunited with his grandfather, who had fled France before the Revolution, and his feckless brother, who is none too keen on his long-lost brother's reappearance. Sporting abundant witticisms and rapier wit, swashbuckling duels, and even some discrete nudity, all within a nice period setting, St. Ives would have found a welcome home on A&E or PBS. Recommended. (K. Lee Benson)