Runtime: 2 hours, 13 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Paul Greengrass
Quick Impressions:
The theatrical trailer for Captain Phillips has been stressing me out for weeks now. Every time I see it, my stomach ties in knots. That moment when Barkhad Abdi says, “I am the captain now,” sends shivers down my spine every time.
Once the TV spots started, I would always say, “I know we have to see that, but it seems so scary! It stresses me out!”
When my ten-year-old stepson overheard, he gave me a look that let me know I’m crazy and clarified, “You think that’s scary?”
A long conversation revealed that he rated the fear factor of Captain Phillips at less than zero. In fact, he could not even begin to guess why I found the prospect of watching the movie so stressful and disturbing.
My husband diplomatically sided with both of us, but added, “To me, there are situations that would be much scarier—like Gravity, floating untethered off into space.”
I was like, “But if you float untethered off into space, you die! And if you see demonic, shape-shifting monsters”—another scenario he raised, one that would scare our ten-year-old, “you pray! But what on earth do you do if you’re attacked by Somali pirates? It’s too much pressure!”
He countered, “But, sweetie, how often is that going to come up in real life? It’s not like Somali pirates are going to be hiding under your bed at night.”
(They might be. Who knows what’s lurking under there. My four-year-old recently told me, “Now don’t get upset, but it is so messy in here, you’re never going to be able to find what you’re looking for.”)
Here’s what stresses me out about Captain Phillips. If you’re the captain of a freighter, and pirates take over and put a gun to your head, you’re going to have to make the right decisions, fast, under unthinkable pressure. If you make the wrong decisions, the men under your command will die, and it will be your fault because you’re responsible for them.
Casablanca always stresses me out for the same reason. At any time, your ordinary life could be ended by a dramatic event (Somali pirate attack, the Nazi invasion of Paris). What if you’re called on to make a noble sacrifice, and it turns out that when push comes to shove, you’re just not hero enough to do it? What if you’re scared? What if you’re selfish? What if pressure reveals that you’re not a diamond after all? What if you just crack into dust and everything is ruined and it’s all your fault and everybody hates you and history pointedly remembers you as somebody who would have been better off forgotten? (See I’m hyperventilating just writing the sentence.)
(And—a bit of unsolicited Casablanca advice—don’t ever try to match Humphrey Bogart drink for drink as you watch. That just makes things worse! How did he make such level-headed decisions after downing so much hard liquor? On a fourth that much, I could barely walk a straight line to take out the DVD!)
Honestly, Casablanca stressed me out for years until one day I had the (ridiculously delayed) epiphany, Hold on. You’re a girl. You would be Ilsa. All you would have to do is inspire love and nobility (because that’s so easy!).
I guess that’s the saving grace of Captain Phillips for me, too. I would never be the captain of the freighter being pursued by Somali pirates. I’d be Catherine Keener sitting at home, getting dull, evasive e-mails that all say, “You know, it’s a typical day,” until I turned on the TV and saw my husband’s face on every channel.
Anyway, stressful or not, I’m glad I went because besides its propensity for stressing me out, Captain Phillips has something else in common with Casablanca. It’s a great movie.
Now, when I say “great,” let me be clear. Is it Casablanca great? Probably not, not quite. But to the film’s credit, I really had to stop and think about that before answering. Few films have been able to equal Casablanca’s amazing legacy, but like Casablanca, Captain Phillips is likely to be a Best Picture contender at the Oscars. It might even win.
The Good:
To my surprise the actual movie didn’t stress me out nearly as much as the theatrical trailer. Maybe condensing the story to preview length places too much emphasis on the tension. Don’t get me wrong, the film is suspenseful, but it’s not always tense and stressful. Watching the actual movie, I didn’t feel stressed out at all. In fact, watching was fun, thought-provoking, and increasingly rewarding emotionally.
Paul Greengrass definitely has a signature style—brisk pace, emphasis on realism, fluid-yet-easy-to-follow action, large, diverse cast supporting one or two clear stars. The experience of watching Captain Phillips is not much different from watching The Bourne Ultimatum or United 93.
There are still a ton of Oscar hopefuls I haven’t had a chance to see yet this year, but at this point I’d be more surprised if Captain Phillips didn’t get Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Director. In fact, with the possibility of ten nominees, if it doesn’t get a Picture nod, I’ll be stunned.
The film is extremely well done. As usual, Greengrass blends realism, suspense, and action while asking genuine questions without easy answers, and he somehow makes all this look effortless, natural, like he’s just standing there fortuitously with a camera, and the movie is growing organically around him.
As usual, since Greengrass loves verisimilitude, the film is teeming with characters, most of them bustling around in the background, going about their business and sometimes blending into one another. The clear standouts are Tom Hanks as Captain Phillips and newcomer Barkhad Abdi as the leader of the pirate band that attacks the freighter. An Oscar nomination for Hanks is practically a given. (Frankly, he hasn’t had a performance this strong in an equally impressive film since the 1990s, so he might even pull off a win.) If it were up to me, I’d thrown in a supporting nod for Abdi, too, since he plays the film’s most compelling character and is thoroughly convincing in the role.
The rest of the cast is very good, too. Nobody really stands out too much, and that’s actually a good thing. We feel like we’re watching a true story happening in the real world, and thankfully no ham-fisted, scenery chewing supporting performances make a play for the spotlight and take us out of the realism of the moment.
The small brace of pirates who accompany Abdi’s Muse are all very good—Barkhad Abdirahman, Faysal Ahmed, and Mahat M. Ali. Like Abdi, all three are new to acting on the big screen. Not at all new to the screen is Max Martini who turns in a small but powerful performance as the Navy SEAL commander. The other actor who actually made an impression on me was David Warshofsky as Mike Perry. Like I said before, though, the entire cast is good. It’s just that the movie feels so real, the performances so true to life, that I sometimes hardly noticed the actors.
Like all of Greengrass’s films, this movie looks incredible, so I’d expect Oscar recognition of its visuals, too. Surely Barry Ackroyd will get a nomination for cinematography, and I really liked Henry Jackman’s score, too. The main theme is particularly compelling, but the whole thing is quite nice because it’s mostly understated and unassuming, so it helps to set the mood without drawing attention to itself and sapping the reality from intense moments.
I’d give Billy Ray’s screenplay an Oscar nomination, too. What I loved about this movie more than anything else is its nuanced, provocative portrayal of the Somali pirates. The way the film introduces them is just brilliant, and honestly, for probably the first half of the movie, I found them more sympathetic (or at least more interesting) than any of the American characters. The juxtaposition of the opening scenes—first our introduction to Phillips, then our introduction to the pirates—pointedly emphasizes that even though times are hard all over, “hard times” is an incredibly relative term.
Another thing I love about the screenplay is that the intensity builds. The preview had me convinced the entire thing would be agonizing, but the pirate invasion of the freighter is actually kind of fun to watch. Despite the real menace of the pirates, the way the captain and crew of the Alabama pull together lightens the mood and makes the film exciting instead of stressful.
The portion of the film featuring the pirates on the ship reminded me so much of Herman Melville’s novella Benito Cereno. When I mentioned this to my husband after the movie, he replied that he was not familiar with Benito Cereno. Halfway through replying, “Well it’s probably Melville’s fourth most famous…” I realized that Melville himself might not remember Benito Cereno and decided to quit while I was ahead.
But if you do happen to be a Melville buff—then you should definitely watch this movie whether or not you’ve read Benito Cereno because obviously you’re into adventures at sea.
(It’s still probably best to avoid rhapsodizing about Melville’s lesser works afterwards in the parking lot. If you find you must rhapsodize, however, do keep in mind that Typee and Omoo are definitely both more famous than Benito Cereno even though I haven’t read them.)
Honestly, I also credit the screenwriter and the director for making me curious about Somali culture. Over the years, I’ve heard a number of news items about Somali pirates, but I always imagined them raising terror on the high seas. What motivates them to “set sail” in the first place? Until now I haven’t given the issue much thought. I’ve considered Somalia in other contexts, but for some reason, I didn’t ever connect the issue of piracy in international waters to what was going on in the pirates’ country of origin. That probably sounds kind of ridiculous, but keep in mind, I don’t often sit around pondering Somali pirates. They’re rarely on my mind. Now I’m wondering all kinds of things about them. For instance, why the emphasis on the phrase “playing games”? The script punches it like nothing else.
The casting choices alone bring Somalia into the spotlight since the actor playing lead pirate Muse (Barkhad Abdi) emigrated to Minnesota from war-torn Somalia as a young child. Muse’s pirate crew is played by friends of Abdi (they all read for the part together), who presumably have similar backgrounds. Off screen and on, Abdi is absolutely fascinating. I hope so much that his acting career blossoms after this.
By the end, of course, Captain Phillips himself won me over because of the strength of Hanks’s performance. Hanks is better in this than I thought he would be (not that I thought he would be bad, but recently, Hanks’s name has been more of a factor than his performances).
Another plus—practically everything that happens in the trailer occurs in the first thirty to forty minutes of the movie. That makes the second half pleasantly suspenseful.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Barkhad Abdi):
Tom Hanks is great in this movie, yes, and he’s almost certainly going to get at least a nomination for Best Actor. But we all knew that Tom Hanks can act. That should surprise no one.
(Well, I take that back. Younger Toy Story fans whose cinematic memories don’t stretch back as far as the 1990s when Hanks was starring in stuff like Philadelphia, Forest Gump, Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, and The Green Mile may know him mainly as the voice of Woody and possibly as The Polar Express guy. Still, Toy Story 3 won an Oscar and made grown men cry and all that, so I think even younger movie goers realize Tom Hanks has talent.)
For me the real revelation here was the supporting performance of Barkhad Abdi. He’s immensely captivating as the lead Somali pirate, and I’m positive that The Captain Phillips trailer was the first time that I’d ever laid eyes on him.
Abdi has an amazing presence. His look is so unusual that when I got home I immediately began to research his background. I found out that he was born in Somalia but emigrated to the United States with his family when he was seven to escape the war. Now he lives in Minneapolis where he responded to an open casting call, auditioned with a group of friends, and (the entire group) got the part.
For an actor in his first role particularly, Abdi is phenomenal. His unknown status coupled with his unconventional (or at least, un-Hollywood) looks really work in the movie’s favor. Abdi feels so authentic in the role, and since he’s playing intense scenes opposite one of Hollywood’s most famous stars, his obscurity itself really helps us lose ourselves in the story. (Early on, I kept thinking, I’m watching Tom Hanks pretend to be a boat captain, but Abdi’s presence and Hanks’s increasingly captivating performance helped to get rid of these initial impressions.)
Abdi has a really nice scene when he asserts his qualifications for leading the attack on the freighter. He’s even better when he first bursts into the bridge of the Alabama and has his earliest interaction with Tom Hanks. Throughout the film, Abdi brilliantly plays Muse’s vacillation between forced overconfidence and shaken anxiety. Tom Hanks will most likely get an Oscar nomination for this, and his co-star deserves one, too. We’ll see what happens.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Tom Hanks):
Tom Hanks surprised me here, too. As the movie progressed, I thought, He’s Tom Hanks with an accent. He’s okay. He’s pretty good. He’s solid in this. Yeah, this is a good performance. This is one of his better performances, actually. This is his best performance in a long time. Wow, that was powerful! Oh my gosh, I’m crying. Okay, this is Tom Hanks’s best performance ever.
As of now, he’s my pick to win the Oscar for Best Actor. (Of course, the year is young!)
As the movie goes on, Hanks’s performance just keeps steadily improving until it finally gets so good that you almost forget it’s Tom Hanks. By the end, I was reacting along with the character instead of evaluating the actor. (Well, I mean, okay, there was still a little part of my mind that was sizing up Hanks’s Oscar chances, but he genuinely moved me with this performance.)
Hanks is strongest in his final scene. Honestly he played that so well that it made me remember similar moments of trauma in my own life and tap into those dazed emotions. He makes the ending of the movie feel incredibly real and powerful, and that’s what counts, isn’t it? If you’re like me, you walk out of the theater feeling that you’ve really experienced something.
I’m surprised that I’m so behind Hanks for Best Actor, but he really does deserve it here.
Best Action Sequence:
No surprise, the most exhilarating and intense action scene happens at the end of the movie. The final moments on the life boat are absolutely riveting, particularly the emotionally fraught instant when it all ends. I noticed some laughter in our theater, but I think people were laughing mainly in awkward relief because the tension broke. It’s a pretty powerful moment.
Best Scene:
Despite some thrilling suspense aboard the Alabama (like when David Warshofsky is sneaking around on deck), all of the movie’s strongest scenes happen in the second half. The stakes are higher, the quarters are tighter, the mood is tense, and the acting is superb.
I really like all the interplay with the sad-eyed and incredibly sympathetic young pirate who (unlike the others) seems aware that he’s out of his depth. (I mean, let’s face it. He’s no Bruce Willis.) I kept hoping for some kind of way out of the situation for him.
My favorite moment, though, (that I haven’t already mentioned) comes with the line, “You’re more than just a fisherman.” That’s a nice moment for both Hanks and Abdi.
Best Scene Visually:
I’m not sure why, but I found the sight of the dock at Oman strangely appealing and alluring. Watching, I thought, There are so many parts of the world that I’ve never seen and probably never will.
The entire movie looks good, really.
The Negatives:
The complaints I have are less with the film than with the narrative itself. As always with true stories, I wonder, “How true is this? How reliable is Captain Phillips’s account?” This is especially an issue because he makes himself look like such a hero, always clever and level headed under pressure and apparently altruistically interested in the well being even of his kidnappers. I mean, the script is based on Phillips’s own book, so watching, it’s hard not to think of how heroic John Smith seems in his own Generall Historie of Virginia. How much of this is just, “Captain Phillips was such an awesome guy.” —Captain Phillips, you know?
The thing I keep wondering is why he doesn’t turn back or alter his course when he gets the e-mail warning about pirates. This is a problem I have with both the historical event and the film. I mean, Paul Greengrass and company can’t help it that Captain Phillips got an e-mail saying to turn back but didn’t turn back. But the film could do a better job of letting us known why Phillips didn’t turn back or alter his course. From what the film does show, I presume that Phillips wanted/needed the money for finishing the job.
But if the film falters anywhere, it’s in giving us clear insight into the character of Captain Phillips early on. Once he’s in extremis, he’s terribly sympathetic and interesting. But early on, we get much more insight into the character of Muse. Phillips being a control freak who thinks he can handle any situation and remain in charge works well for Hanks’s performance trajectory, but I’m not sure it’s the best thing for the story. Maybe the scene in the car with Catherine Keener is too brief. I’d like to see more of where Phillips comes from. We get lots and lots of character development eventually, but I personally would have liked to have seen it a little sooner. As I said, the power of Hanks’s performance benefits from this delay (as do his Oscar chances), but I think the movie might work better if more of Phillips’s background were shown.
For me, it’s hard to see that scene of him writing a reassuring message home to his wife and not think, “So Phillips doesn’t tell it like it is. He tells it like he thinks his audience wants to hear it, and then assumes that he can eventually bring actual reality in line with his projected reality because he knows he’s good at being in charge, and he’s sure he can handle anything.” But this film gets its storyline from Phillips’s own personal account of his ordeal. See why that’s kind of problematic?
In the end, though, does that matter? Probably not. The film is very good, and who cares if Phillips’s own account is potentially biased, self-aggrandized, exaggerated, filtered through a fuzzy memory. Greengrass and screenwriter Ray counterbalance this potential bias with a surprisingly sympathetic and nuanced portrayal of the Somali pirates. (They can’t tell us everything, but they artfully include as much as there’s time for, leaving us curious enough to want to research more after the movie.) Really, this is a great film, emotionally satisfying yet intellectually challenging. I liked it much more than I ever thought I would.
Overall:
Captain Phillips is an entertaining, suspenseful, emotionally satisfying movie that should get a ton of Oscar nominations and might even win Best Picture. (There’s a lot of competition, but it’s certainly a respectable entry into a crowded field.) Tom Hanks might win a third Best Actor Oscar, too, for what is possibly the best performance of his career. It’s certainly his most powerful performance since Philadelphia. Newcomer Barkhad Abdi is also phenomenal as Somali pirate captain Muse. If it were up to me, he’d get an Oscar nomination, too. If you liked Greengrass’s Bourne movies and United 93, then you should enjoy this real life adventure, too.
For a good way to kill a rainy weekend, take friends to see Gravity and Captain Phillips back-to-back. Afterwards, ask everybody, “So which movie did you like better?” Then settle in for a long and spirited discussion. This is a great fall for movies.