The Island (2023)

St. Kitts and Nevis is not a country you see credited on many film productions, which makes The Island (2023) a minor curiosity before a single frame has played. Shot on location in the Caribbean twin-island nation, the film was produced by MSR Media SKN, a company with a stated mission of building a film industry in St. Kitts and Nevis. That context is worth keeping in mind: this is, at least in part, a piece of economic and cultural infrastructure for a small island state, not a Hollywood pitch to multiplex audiences. Whether that ambition translates to the screen is, of course, another matter.

The film is directed by Shaun Paul Piccinino, a workmanlike genre director whose career has been built largely in the lower-budget action and thriller space. The story follows an LAPD officer named Mark who returns to the Caribbean island where he grew up after his brother is killed, only to find himself drawn into a conflict with a corrupt and powerful local figure. It is a premise as old as the genre itself, the reluctant hero pulled back into the world he left behind, familiar territory for anyone who has spent time with action cinema from the past four decades. For crime and action fans, the closest comparison points are probably mid-tier American cable thrillers from the nineties and early 2000s, polished but unremarkable productions that hit their marks without ever threatening to stick in the memory. If you want a benchmark for how that sort of thing can be done with genuine craft and weight, the crime genre has produced films like A Bittersweet Life and The Raid 2 that show what is possible at the harder end of the scale.

The principal draw here is Michael Jai White, who leads the cast as Mark. White is a legitimate martial artist with real screen presence, a actor who has been kicking around genre cinema for decades and demonstrated genuine comic and physical range in films like Black Dynamite. Alongside him are Jackson Rathbone, Gillian White, Edoardo Costa and Wayne Gordon, a cast that suggests a certain level of ambition even if the production resources available were clearly limited. The 93-minute runtime is sensible for this kind of material: long enough to tell its story, short enough not to overstay its welcome.

A-Z World Movie Tour St Kitts and Nevis The Island with Michael Jai White is about as close to proper cinema as a karate kick to the face, meaning, not very. It’s a direct-to-TV action flick through and through: cheap sets, bad acting, and a plot so paper-thin it might as well be written on a napkin. White plays a man returning to his Caribbean home only to get caught up in some nonsense about gangsters and hidden secrets. Honestly, you’ll forget the story five minutes after it ends. The dialogue is laughable, the acting is stiff and every emotional moment lands with a thud. You can practically hear the crew saying “just do it again, we can’t afford reshoots.” The fight scenes are OK (White still moves well) but they’re shot too close and edited too fast to really shine. It’s all very there, but never exciting. That said, it’s so dumb and low-budget that it almost loops back to being fun, if you’re in the right mood, with mates, and a few beers. The cinematography is pretty good too. It’s not awful awful, just forgettably cheesy.

And that, really, is the most honest thing you can say about The Island: it knows what it is, even if what it is does not amount to a great deal. For me, the St. Kitts and Nevis setting is the one genuinely distinctive thing it has going for it, and it is a shame the production does not lean into that more. Watching it as part of a broader survey of world cinema, as I have been doing, it at least earns its place on the list. I would not queue for it, and I would not seek it out on a quiet Friday night when there are sharper action films a click away. But if it lands in front of you with the right company and the right refreshments, you could do worse. Just do not expect to be talking about it by the time you get your coat on.

Rating: ★★  | Year: 2023  | Watched: 2025-08-28

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Trailer

▶ Watch the official trailer for The Island (2023) on YouTube

Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Amazon Prime Video · Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: Amazon Prime Video · Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

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More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
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