2013: The Year in Film: "Captain Phillips" Review

Tom Hanks' quasi-retirement/"producer" phase of the mid-2000's following the relative busts of "The Terminal" and "The Ladykillers" was a bit baffling to some, and it no doubt led to some amnesia among moviegoers as to how much of a powerhouse Hanks can be with the right material. Castaway/Saving Private Ryan/Apollo 13/Philadelphia Hanks was simply as good as any actor in Hollywood not named Daniel Day-Lewis. He was slowly starting to stake a legitimate claim to "greatest actor of all time"-type titles, only to more or less disappear from powerhouse stuff. Given all of that, it was easy to forget just how damn GOOD Hanks could be with the right material and with the right director. So when the ads for "Captain Phillips" directed by Paul Greengrass of 'Bourne' fame started to leak out, I slowly allowed myself to become excited for the return of one of America's screen titans to awards-worthy work.

"Captain Phillips", for those of you who don't know, is a dramatization of the harrowing ordeal of one Richard Phillips, the captain of the S.S. Alabama when she was hijacked by Somali pirates in the spring of 2009, culminating in dramatic rescue by US Navy SEALS several days later.

The Good: Hanks, obviously, is great. Understated and schluppy, his Captain Phillips is a competent but very ordinary man having a very bad day on the job. This is his finest performance since Castaway, and we're really getting vintage Hanks for this one. The film clearly takes its dedication to accuracy very seriously, and the result is a very real feeling and tense film. Aside from Hanks, the best performances are turned in by the Somali hijackers, particularly Barkhad Abdi, who plays the leader of the pirates, named Muse. It's my understanding that the hijackers were portrayed by first time actors and unknowns who were found at open auditions, and it's remarkable that their performances are so good given that we're basically seeing amateurs act across from Tom Hanks. Abdi especially deserves to have a legitimate acting career after the work he turns in here.  The film's plotting and pace are strong as well, with the 2nd half of the movie being incredibly tense, despite the fact that everyone knows exactly how the film ends. That's laudable, you guys.


The Bad: granted, some of this is due to the nature of the story being told, but aside from Hanks' Capt Phillips and Muse, there isn't a single character who's developed beyond an extremely minimal level. On the one hand, that keeps the story self-contained and adds to the tension, but on the other, it makes the world feel false, because we're basically dealing with a bunch of two dimensional fake persons and two actual characters. This is especially true of the military figures once they come into play. The US Navy is basically straight out of the commercial, with hyper-competent badasses just getting stuff done. Look, I know that that's exactly the image the US military is cultivating, but as a consumer of fiction, I'd appreciate a little depth to my stories, guys. The Navy SEALS here might as well be Terminators. They drop in, shoot people, and disappear, with our characters left to pick up the pieces.

All in all, this one is well worth watching. Hanks turns in a powerhouse performance of one man's harrowing ordeal, and personifying the hijackers was a nice and welcome touch. Ultimately, this is an incredibly tense flick that feels much shorter than its hefty runtime. There are no winners and losers when it comes to Somalia, and if this flick can spur you to do a little reading of your own, that's a definite plus.

8/10. Featuring a great central performance and some tense plotting but ultimately too hollow to reach true greatness. It certainly is great to have Tom Hanks back, and personally, I'm rooting for Abdi to have a long and lucrative career.