Movie Review: Captain Phillips

Movie Review: Captain Phillips

Rated PG-13

134 minutes

Directed by Paul Greengrass

Captain Phillips is a story about a captain of a ship, Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks), as his ship gets hijacked by 4 armed pirates, the leader among them named Muse (Barkhad Abdi), and serious pirate antics go down, not all of them on the main ship.

The film is very tense. It baits you in almost immediately, with this interesting premise and strong cast. Tom Hanks truly captures the sense of the average man in this terrible situation that's going on around him, and Barkhad Abdi is exceptional for his first film, delivering an emotional and strong performance that is incredibly hard to forget. The score by Henry Jackman is quite good, as it is able to blend into the film very well. The cinematography is serviceable, which I would've never expected from the cinematographer, Barry Ackroyd, as the last film that he shot, Parkland, was so terribly shot. I liked some of the symbolism there was in the dialogue, one instance of which compares the captain's name to other countries' perceptions of America And the final 10 minutes of the movie were exceptional, and Tom Hanks was even greater than he was before.

It's certainly not perfect, and I could think of some things to differently. The phrase "Everything's going to be alright" is repeated a lot throughout this movie, and after the phrase is said, you expect something terrible to happen. On the occasions it doesn't, it takes you out of the film. While it does somewhat sympathize with both sides, the movie does favorite America, and paints the villains is being almost completely without sympathy, and shows Captain Phillips as being a completely innocent and great in this matter. That's not to say it doesn't deliver some sympathy, but I feel it sided more with America. Another thing I would do is when the pirates and the captain enter the lifeboat, I would have the rest of the time the captain is in the lifeboat take place inside it, as it is Captain Phillips's story, and we should focus on him, not the military's efforts to get the pirates to turn him over.

Captivating and expertly acted, Captain Phillips is one of the best movies of the year, even if it does have some narrative and script issues for my liking. Recommended.

3.5/5

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