Captain Phillips Review

Captain Phillips: A spectacular film with engaging, funny, nail-biting and emotionally complex moments to cherish! One of the best Hollywood films of the year!
Rating: ****
Director: Paul Greengrass

Cast: Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi, Michael Chernus, Catherine Keener

Paul Greengrass’ Captain Phillips shows us just how tough and stressful it is for anybody stuck in a life-threatening situation, be it the victims or the attackers themselves.Those who’ve heard about the 2009 Maersk Alabama hijacking would quickly assume Captain Phillips and his crew members, the first-world Americans, to be the victims and heroes, and the third-world Somalian pirates to be the attackers and villains. It was indeed the Somalian pirates’ intentions to take over Captain Phillips’ cargo ship in the first place, which consequently led to his kidnapping, but does it make the other side completely blemishless?

Captain

Phillips, taken hostage by the four pirates in his ship’s life-boat, argues in one scene that his ship was carrying food which could’ve helped millions of Africans if Abduwali Muse and his men hadn’t hijacked it; Muse, the leader, replies ‘We are fishermen. You Americans come to our country and take our fish. What shall we do for a living?’. While robbing ships wouldn’t be the right thing to do, the question here is what else can they do? With little-to-no development, abject standards of living and plenitudinous socio-economic problems, not much, except to support their people, to contend day-and-night for their livelihood. And when they see an already privileged nation snatching their means of existence in the name of exports (again, the gains of export benefiting largely the privileged in Africa), they are bound to fight back albeit using criminal means.

Captain Phillips doesn’t compartmentalize its characters as ‘good’ and ‘bad’; instead, the film cleverly shows them as men driven by similar needs, wants, desires, ambitions, dreams and desperation. This is indicated in the beginning itself, where we first hear Captain Richard Phillips sharing his concern about his hectic work-life and frequent absence from his family with his wife, Andrea, as they head to the airport in Vermont. The next scene, shifting to Eyl in Somalia, similarly highlights how the natives are compelled to work and raid ships only to support their families. Both Phillips and Muse are captains of their respective ships, and both parties have their strengths and weaknesses which they use to gain an advantage over the other; this leads to one of the most enthralling, nail-biting first-half of any films in recent memory.

Captain Phillips and his crew

have a greater team strength, more resources and an intricate knowledge of their ship. Muse and his men, on the other hand, have guns and experience at piracy. When Phillips sees two skiffs with gun-wielding pirates approaching the ship, he instructs his crew to hide in the engine room. Attempting to scare the enemies away, he sets the radio to the pirates frequency and fakes an alert call to the Navy; this sets one of the two skiffs heading back in panic. The other one with Muse, however, remains undeterred and continues on its mission. When Phillips and Muse see each other for the first time, it is through their respective binoculars; this makes clear the parallel between the two men: both captains protecting their respective crew. Even after the ship is raided, Muse and his men don’t have control over the entire crew; they find only Phillips, First Officer Shane Murphy and another member in the steering room. The interactions between them a treat to watch – never too grim, sometimes funny and always engaging.

Unsatisfied with Phillips’ offer of thirty-thousand dollars (if the pirates could make away with six million dollars from a Greek ship on their previous raid, they would certainly be expecting more from an ‘American’ ship), they take Captain Phillips aboard the ship’s lifeboat and launch it into the waters. The second half is primarily a rescue mission, cutting back and forth between the lifeboat and the Navy’s rescue mission. Phillips is in great danger, but he isn’t depicted as a totally helpless, tortured victim and neither are Muse and his men shown as ruthless barbarians. In fact, Phillips only gets a beating when he tries to escape and even then, some of the men show remorse towards him. The fact is that all five men are in a pitiable state, surviving on little little water, no food and insufficient air in the unending waters. When Phillips coaxes Muse to surrender, saying the Navy will eventually defeat him and his men, the latter resignedly says ‘he needs to finish what he’s started’. There’s no turning back now.

Greengrass, who has given films such as ‘Bourne Supremacy’ and ‘Bourne Ultimatum’, is fortunately less frenetic with his hand-held camera this time (his Bourne Supremacy and Ultimatum threw some movie-goers off-balance with jerky camera movements and never-ceasing jump cuts). Captain Phillips still bears his mark, especially with the constant ‘twitch-zooms’ on his characters and it works really well. The film has two-time Oscar winner (Best Actor in ‘Philadelphia’ and ‘Forrest Gump’) Tom Hanks and he’s reliably remarkable as the staid and level-headed American-Irish Phillips (with an unintrusive, natural Irish accent on certain words). His best, most brilliant and satisfying moments come towards the poignant ending. And Barkhad Abdi is a gem as pirate leader Muse, and you listen and empathize with his character instead of labelling him a pure antagonist.

I saw Captain Phillips right after getting out of another film called Escape Plan, starring Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The latter movie, about a structural-security authority’s escape from an illegal military-run for-profit prison, clearly divided its characters into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and gave little character development to either. Instead of negotiations, it used violent beatdowns to further its thin plot. This film, on the other hand, is far more interesting and deeper in its themes. It’s commendable that this film hasn’t compensated on its insight and intelligence despite being an action thriller; even in a tense-hectic atmosphere, unlike Gravity’s quieter, emptier space, it’s able to give us three-dimensional characters and elucidate their motives effortlessly. It helps that this film was based on a book written by Phillips himself called ‘A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea’; its been adapted to film by Billy Ray, the writer of Hunger Games.

Shall we see this film at the Oscars? We shall wait and see, but the audience members seem to love it quite a lot. One guy, on exiting the theatre hall, remarked ‘Aa to Oscar-material

chhe!’ (This is Oscar material!). And most audience members waited and during the closing credits instead of rushing out like theatre actors exiting the stage for costume change. Why in God’s name would you want to skip a film that’s got such a great response?

ourvadodara.in Rating Guide:

* = Avoid!!

** = Rent It / TV Premiere

*** = Book The Cheapest Seats

**** = Book The Best Seats

***** = Book The Best Seats + Buy The DVD!