Captain Phillips (Tom Hanks) pilots a cargo ship off the Somalian coast when it is boarded and hijacked by pirates.
When the pirates try to escape they take the captain hostage, which results in a tense showdown with the U.S. Navy.
We say, “Batten down your hatches.”
HOWE: Tom Hanks is back to his acting best in Captain Phillips after that strange movie last year, Cloud Atlas. Hanks is one of the best actors around. When I watch him he makes it look effortless and there are not a lot of actors that can do that. He always gives his characters emotion and depth and towards the end of this, I was getting a little choked up. Marvellous performance.
TAYLOR: Although Hanks carries the film on his back, he doesn’t have much to do until the end, when there is such a release that the audience can share in his catharsis. While it’s true the reason the denouement of the film is so emotional stems from sharing Captain Phillips’ fear, it’s the pirates themselves that produce that fear. Essentially, this is a film that takes the good captain and the audience hostage, ties them up in a lifeboat and holds a machine gun to their head, wild-eyed and sweaty.
HOWE: Don’t forget they scream at you every so often. Plus it was filmed with that hand- held documentary style, which adds to both the realism and the seasickness. That’s probably why this film works so well. If they had filmed it using normal techniques and tripods to hold the shot steady, I think you would have lost something in the transition to screen.
TAYLOR: The Somali pirates in the film, including their lead, Muse (Barkhad Abdi), have never been in anything before. They all did a great job of being desperate, scary pirates, and without them the film may have been lost. They also help the subtext of the film, which is about globalization and resources. Although Captain Phillips is a true tale —a Maersk cargo ship was taken hostage in 2009 in the first act of piracy against an American vessel in hundreds of years— there were plenty of liberties taken to make the film more exciting.
HOWE: But a filmmaker can only make what he is told, so if it’s stretched a little bit, who’s fault is that? It’s like the Chinese whisper game: one tells another and so on, there’s always going to be a little bit of conflict about what really happened on that ship.
TAYLOR: There are discrepancies in the tale between Richard Phillip’s book, the movie, and then also between Phillip’s version of the tale and the rest of crew, some of whom are currently suing, saying that Phillips needlessly put their lives in danger by his inaction. At any rate, this is an exciting, tense film which provides an even more exhausting ride than Gravity.
—Taylor gives Captain Phillips 4 barf bags out of 5.
— Howe gives it 4 fire drills out of 5.
The film is showing at the Galaxy Cinemas in Vernon.
Brian Taylor and Peter Howe are film reviewers based in Vernon, B.C. Their column appears in The Morning Star every Friday and Sunday,
