As I stepped outside after watching “Captain Phillips,” I took a deep breath. I was glad to be off the water, away from the men who had no value for human life, and no longer near the bullets that were a split-second away from boring a tunnel through my brain. It had been a harrowing two hours.
Composing this review less than one hour after seeing the movie, my reaction still surprises me. I’m not feeling the elation that comes with watching a good movie, even one with a sad ending. Did I not like the film? Why was I glad when it was over?
I thought this over before proceeding with this review. I believe I was relieved when “Captain Phillips” ended because the people who labored to bring it to the screen did a phenomenal job of recreating a traumatic real life event. The experience Phillips endured was so intense, and I was so immersed in his plight, that a part of me forgot I was sitting safely in a theater, thousands of miles away from the Somali coast and the pirates who patrol it in a desperate search for kidnapping victims.
“Captain Phillips” is based on the true story of merchant mariner Captain Richard Phillips, who was taken hostage by pirates in the Indian Ocean during the Maersk Alabama hijacking in 2009. It stars Tom Hanks as Phillips, a man who, by the account of this film, loves his family, takes a firm but protective hand with his crew, and knows his ship. The opening scenes show him reluctantly leaving his wife for a long voyage, settling in for the journey, and running safety drills. When two skiffs carrying Somali pirates appear on the horizon, he uses his expertise and sea smarts to ward off the attack.
He and his crew are not as fortunate when a subset of the pirates return, led by the wiry but fearless Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse. As portrayed by actor Barkhad Abdi, Muse is a frightening but human man. Writer Billy Ray and director Paul Greengrass include a scene in which Muse’s dust-ridden village is terrorized by a warlord who demands the men of the village kidnap the crew of a ship and deliver to him a portion of the ransom.
The film’s best scenes are those in which the pirates board the ship and then search for its crew. This tense, suspenseful middle portion of the movie had me leaning forward in my seat, terrified of the violence that threatened to erupt any moment.
This portion of the movie ends with Phillips saving the lives of his crewmembers by agreeing to go with the pirates on the ship’s lifeboat. However, once the cat-and-mouse game between the pirates and the U.S. Navy begins, the film lost me. The scenes on the lifeboat feel appropriately claustrophobic, and the long stretch during which Greengrass places the audience in the lifeboat with the men nicely ramps up the suspense, but it goes on too long, and certain things make no sense.
I can understand why Phillips tried to write a farewell to his family, but why did he risk putting on a shirt? And why did that anger the pirates? Maybe someone can explain it to me. The climax just felt padded with unnecessary details.
Regardless, Hanks does his usual bang up job as an actor to bring Phillips to life and encourage viewers to identify with him, and there was likely no better director than Greengrass to direct this movie. His shaky, handheld style, honed to nauseating perfection in the last two Jason Borne movies, is usually distracting, but here, he tones it down, using it just enough to give the action urgency and make viewers feel as though they are there, in the moment.
“Captain Phillips” is fully deserving of its 95 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, as of the publication of this review. But, for all of its expert craftsmanship, I have no desire to see it again. The last act drained me, and I was glad when it was finally over - although not as glad as Phillips was, I’m sure.
Three stars out of four. Rated PG-13 for sustained intense sequences of menace, some violence with bloody images, and for substance use.