Captain Phillips: Worlds Collide on the High Seas

Captain Phillips is the story of the Maersk Alabama hijacking in 2009 when four Somali pirates took control of an America cargo vessel and subsequently took its captain hostage. Just to spare my readers grief, don't read further if you don't know anything about the hijacking and would consider details about the outcome to be a spoiler.

Tom Hanks plays the eponymous captain, a stoic man from Massachusetts with years of seafaring experience under his belt. He is captaining the Maersk Alabama's voyage from Oman to Mombasa, which involves traversing the pirate-infested waters off the coast of Somalia. He has a somewhat testy relationship with the crew, who are not pleased about this risky itinerary. In the middle of a security drill, Phillips spots two skiffs bearing pirates with assault rifles. The crew executes all the safety maneuvers they've been taught. But despite the fact that they are on an enormous ship and their attackers are on dinky boats, they don't stand a chance, because they have no weapons on board. Armed with AK-47s and a ladder, four Somali pirates find it laughably easy to take over the ship. A series of events leads to their leaving the ship on the lifeboat, with Captain Phillips as hostage. Which results in the intervention of the US Navy, who need to make sure they rescue the captain before the pirates reach land.

Directed by Paul Greengrass, Captain Phillips is a taut thriller that perfectly captures the desperation that motivates every character. The shaky camera lends a documentary feel to the film and there are moments when you feel both seasick and claustrophobic. Screenwriter Billy Ray hasn't written an America-centric rah-rah action movie; instead, we see why these four Somalians have turned to piracy and the consequences they face from warlords if they don't return with millions. And the captain isn't really a hero - he is simply acting on a very human instinct for self-preservation, which causes him to do both heroic and foolish things. Once he's taken as a hostage, he knows that things are likely to end badly and his terror is evident. This is not a story of a brave man versus four evil pirates: it's a tale of five men who are all thrust into a horrible situation. One exchange sums up this movie perfectly: Captain Phillips is pleading with Muse, the pirate captain, and says, "You don't have to be fishermen or pirates, you can do something else." Muse replies, "Maybe in America."

The four Somali actors, Barkhad Abdi, Barkhad Abdirahman, Faysal Ahmed, and Mahat M. Ali, deliver incredible performances that place the humanity of these characters front and center. Tom Hanks puts in an unsurprisingly Oscar-worthy performance that will remind you of what a great actor he is and his final scenes are particularly heartbreaking. The movie ends at exactly the right moment, which is a testament to how judiciously it has been edited to avoid the blight of "multiple endings" that plagues most films today. The soundtrack by Henry Jackman is also noteworthy - it is intense but never takes over the scene, doing its best to make you feel the music rather than hear it. You will be on the edge of your seat without realizing that the music has put you there.

Captain Phillips is an excellent movie that has been made with a great deal of care and humanity. It's not meant to be a feel-good piece, but is an interesting reflection on the state of the world today and how you can't trust a one-sided narrative to tell the whole story.