Captain Phillips

Captain Philips

2013

Drama

3.5 stars out of 5

As the news of the actual Captain Phillips’ rescue by the US Navy and their team of Seals reached America, like most of America, I rejoiced. The bad guys were beaten, and the good guy rescued. And all done with the expert precision we all hope for from our most elite team of warriors. I later read a little more about the pirate problem in Somalia and had to some small degree, a slight variation of thought on the issue. That is to say, I learned of the over-fishing of the seas adjacent to Somalia, and the few choices left to their former fishermen.

In Captain Phillips (Tom Hanks) we see Captain Phillips and his wife (Catherine Keener) living their life in New England, their concerns about their son, their anxiety over the long separations due to his job, the long drive to airport: modern middle-class America. The movie then quickly and somewhat jarringly switches to the life in Somalia of Muse (Barkhad Abdi).  Muse lives in a former fishing village, now an armed camp that is under the rule of a local warlord that according to the movie forces the former fishermen, now pirates into the ship hijacking trade in order to enrich the warlord’s coffers. The comparison could not be less subtle.

Directed by Paul Greengrass, the movie quickly moves to sea. Captain Phillips’ ship the Maersk Alabama leaves the Horn of Africa to deliver food for refugees in Kenya. To get there they must traverse the Somali coast and Muse’s village. He commands a small team of four, and is determined to get a big cargo ship, enrich himself, and somewhat ironically move to America. We learn most of this after Muse and his team do capture the Maersk Alabama only to quickly abandon it with Captain Phillips in tow as a hostage.

Greengrass depicts the capture, and the machinations of Captain Phillips as a very clever cat and mouse game played almost exclusively by Captain Phillips. Due to the circumstances of his capture, he must delude Muse and his team in such a deceptive manner that they never know they are being manipulated. He manages to set the stage where they must abandon the ship in one of the lifeboats, but they do so with Captain Phillips as a prisoner. Shortly thereafter, the US Navy arrives on the scene, and the real psycho-drama between Phillips, Muse and his team starts. We are able to watch through Acts 2 and 3 Captain Phillips’ progress from a strong leader to a clever prisoner to a shrunken and temporarily broken husk of his former self.

Greengrass impressed me considerably with his previous movie United 93 (another hostage movie where the hostages do not let the terrorists stay in charge), and he does so again with this story. The only source of trouble for this movie is that there is not too much to tell beyond the actual facts of the story. Other than the rescue of Captain Phillips and the horrific state of his mind at that point, there was only the more nuanced discussion between Muse and Captain Phillips, wherein after learning from Muse that he and his team were all former fisherman, Captain Phillips states there must be some other options besides fisherman and pirate, Muse replys, “maybe in America, but not in Somalia”. A pretty sobering situation, and while I am the last person to paint terrorists or criminals as “victims” in any particular crime, there is still some room for further thought on the condition of the Somali pirates/fishermen. Also sobering is the near poverty of the actual Somalis used in the movie as they live their lives after the movie.

The movie is a brisk action movie with some social commentary, fine acting by Hanks and suprisingly also by newcomer Abdi; a pretty good movie for the adult viewer.