A very strong movie that excels in you-are-there dramatic verisimilitude more than creativity, but any film that I know the ending of ahead of time but still manages to create genuine third-act suspense is doing something very right. Director Paul Greengrass is best known for directing two of the Matt Damon as Jason Bourne films but his best film is arguably United 93, a film about the fourth plane in the 911 hijacking that plugged you right into what it was like to be on that ill-fated flight. He doesn’t bring that same level of virtuoso realism to Captain Phillips but he comes pretty darn close.
What Works: It’s important for a docudrama to at least attempt to portray both sides of a conflict, and this film does that successfully. Although Tom Hanks is the titular hero and a good number of ticket buyers will be rooting for those “dirty Somalis” to get killed, the film at least mentions that the “pirates” are essentially former fisherman who no longer have jobs now that European fishing vessels overfished their waters. [They could have also mentioned that Italy’s trash industry uses the Somali coast as a dumping ground for toxic waste.] They’re also desperate to pay “tribute” to the warlords that control the area and claim the lion’s share of the bounties they might get. The film doesn’t shy away from the fact that the lives of pirates don’t mean much to their “bosses” and their odds of survival aren’t great.
Dramatically, the film works because it stacks one terrifically suspenseful set piece on top of another. The cat and mouse sequence when the pirates first approach the boat but only don’t board because their motor burns out, the dread-filled initial boarding scene, the snare-drum tight search of the boat, the eventual standoff, and a tense third act set almost entirely in a very cramped (and very modern) lifeboat that looks like a mini-submarine.
What Doesn’t Work: Some have said that the lifeboat section of the film goes on for too long, and I could feel the audience getting slightly restless. And it’s true that ten minutes probably could have been cut out of this part of the movie, but it’s also where the real character building is. The pirates grow increasingly desperate and their leader Muse (played by the Minneapolis born Somalian actor Barkhad Abdi) gives a performance nearly as good as Hanks’. Plus, the ending scenes where Hanks is in ecstatic shock are the emotional climax and (in my opinion) the best part of the movie.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Even if the movie could be ten minutes shorter, why complain? This is smart, tense adult entertainment with another layered performance from Hanks, who is never allowed to reveal exactly what his character thinks. [If only that applied to the audience, standard comment after leaving the theater “That there movie about made me seasick!” one female patron shrieked.] Do yourself a favor and see it.