Is ‘Captain Ron’ Sailor’s Favorite Sailing Movie?

Who could have imagined that Captain Ron, a whacky, early-’90s family-comedy, would cement itself into sailor’s hearts as their favorite sailing movie of all time? Not only do sailors enjoy the movie at face value for it’s comedy, locations, stellar sailing scenes, iconic one-liners and general entertainment value, but many a mariner has been inspired by Captain Ron to face their fears and head out to sea, because, if anything’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen out there.

“An old saying teaches us that the hardest thing to do is untie the dock lines,” wrote Bob Johnson. “It means that we will leave the safety of the harbor for the adventure that awaits every sailor when the sails are raised. Captain Ron shows us in extended detail why this is true. Things go wrong. The unexpected arrives. There are many challenges. And then we get to feel the exhilaration that comes from when the wheels kick, the wind sings and the white sails shake. It really is one of the finest movies about sailing.”

“Not bad for a movie from 25 years ago,” said Wayne Cederquist “I had always been a little interested in sailing, but that movie made it look so cool and fun that it moved me to learn to sail, own a boat (now on my third) and go on several charter trips with friends and family that I captained in the Caribbean. Most definitely a formative motion picture for me!”

One man is a face among millions in a cold, sprawling metropolis. He dejected, lost in the crowd and tightly wound as he ambles through busy streets he walks into his office building, our protagonist — Martin Harvey, played by Martin Short —  is trapped in a revolving door by an inconsiderate younger man. Perhaps it’s a metaphor: stuck in a spinning cycle from which he cannot escape.

All the while, during the cheerful opening sequence set in a wintery Chicago, a bike messenger zips through busy, snow-covered city streets. Oddly upbeat (and decidedly ’90s) island-ish music is juxtaposed in the background, strangely sanguine against the bleak world our protagonist inhabits. The paths of the messenger and Harvey, it seems, are destined to cross. Without him knowing, the sea calls to on of our heroes.

Harvey crams into an impossibly crowded elevator. A rotund and especially garrulous man reveals (embarrassingly, inappropriately) to the crowd in the elevator that Harvey wants to write a novel. “I mean that’s what he told me. But what’re you gonna write about, adventures in new product development?”

“I just said someday . . .” Harvey tries to answer.

“Well my point exactly, someday,” the obnoxious man says. Just then, the bike messenger crowds into the elevator and fates collide. He has a package, for Harvey — his uncle just died, and left him a boat in the Caribbean.

The other man is Harvey’s antithesis, both in personality and in dramatic oppositin. He is loosely wound, his feathers unrufflable. He’s a tanned, dreadlocked sailor, swashbuckling, beer-guzzling and wearing a patch to cover his glass eye. His presence is large, he leaves a trail of empty bottles, broken hearts and angry husbands. His motto: “Don’t worry, they’ll get out of the way.” Indeed, our other hero believes that all of humanity will simply ‘get out of his way’ to accommodate the happy-go-lucky, anything-goes course he’s charted through life.

This is the story of captain Ron Rico, played by Kurt Russell.

Wackiness ensues.

The boat the Harveys inherit (reportedly one of two 50-ft ketches used in the movie) is a beautiful disaster. The Harvey family — including Martin, a wisecracking pre-teen, a teenage daughter rapidly growing into her sexuality, and a mom who’s the upbeat, unsung hero and glue of the movie — reluctantly go to work on their new home. (A staple of late ’80s and early ’90s movies seems to revolve around the ‘fixer-upper’ plotline.)

Calamity ensues.

Captain Ron steadily emasculates Martin Harvey by being  indefatigably easier-going than the suburbia dad who’s “worked very hard to plan a spontaneous adventure” for his family. In the end, captain Ron temporarily sacrifices his own manhood, pretending to be wounded when he’s not so that Mr. Harvey — who learns to throw at least a little caution to the wind — can lead and shine.

It’s the perfect arc for both our heroes.

A friend of mine likened captain Ron’s character to Mary Poppins. Really? “He swoops in, teaches everyone an important life lesson, and then swoops away just as fast as he arrived, onto the next family,” my friend explained.

T. Michael Leonard wrote: “We were cruising on a Flicka in Mexico when Captain Ron hit the theaters. It was the end of the cruise and we were back in the states to get the trailer to bring the boat home. The boat Serendipity was in Mazatlan (much of our adventure was chronicled in the pages of Latitude — including the 700-mile trailer home — via the Changes section.)

“We went to the theater to see the movie when we got home [to Tucson, Arizona]. I don’t remember the exact scenes we laughed so hard at, but the ‘regular’ people at the movie just didn’t see the humor. We started to get nasty looks from the folks in the seats around us because we were laughing so much. Keep in mind Tucson doesn’t have many cruising sailors. I still enjoy the movie, especially the end when they turn around and head for the great unknown rather than go back to Chicago.”

Michael Moen said that Captain Ron was on his “short list of best sailing movies, not only because it showed an attainable boat, but it also showcased the things that can go wrong, such as boats needing maintenance and the concept of ‘this is an adventure’ that we all know and occasionally love.”

Don Fox thought Captain Ron was robbed of consideration by the Academy Award. “Kurt Russell should have got an Oscar for that movie and a sequel.”

Here’s our always-being-updated list of sailing movies, some of which we’ve already reviewed: Moana, The Four Seasons, Captains Courageous, Wake of the Red Witch, Moby Dick, The Sea Wolf, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Wind, White Squall, Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Calm, Captain Blood and Waterworld.