Review: "Captain Phillips" is tense and cramped modern pirate thriller

"Captain Phillips" PG 13
     Paul Greengrass (Flight 93) uses the book and screenplay of the Rick Phillips story to make a Hollywood thriller in order to get Tom Hanks another Oscar. The story is based upon the events of spring 2009 when Somali pirates held up a cargo ship off the coast of Africa and ransomed the captain. The Alabama merchant ship is set upon in open waters. It caught the news media at the time and it's a wonder Hollywood waited so long to make a movie out of it. Phillips wrote a book about the story from which the movie is based, centering on him, and only showing his side of the story, even though the crew worked together to stop the pirates.
     The hero of the story faces off with the evil toothy pirate captain, who is played slightly older than the actual person was. The pirates were all young men about 16 to 19 including their leader. The pirates board the ship after a long chase, but the crew fights back using the ship against their oat, cutting power, and breaking some glass so one of them steps barefoot onto it. It's a little hard to buy that they would be that dumb or careless. Anyway, the navy comes in to the rescue, and chases the lifeboat the pirates have fled in with Phillips as their hostage. Eventually they have to drag the boat out to international waters to arrest the pirates.
     The background characters are reduced to a few heroic moments but mainly it's a Hanks vehicle, which at times is unfortunate.
     The military is played off as kind of trigger happy, sending in a warship, destroyer and a full SEAL team just to extract one merchant captain held on a lifeboat with pirates. It seems a little over the top. It's not like the man was a ranking admiral or something. The navy also manages to retrieve the ship. It is not clear how old the bad guy is supposed to be, but apparently the real bad guy was no older than 18, but the actor in the movie seemed to be in his mid to late 20s. Curiously though there was an awful lot of press about the incident at the time and they made it sound like he was someone incredibly important. Still, the movie is a fine tense thriller and will likely get an Oscar nod. Finally there is a drama that is worthy this year.
Review by Adam Browne