Movie Review- Captain Phillips

What would happen if you took an average sea captain and put him in an extraordinary situation. This is what the plot of Captain Phillips feels like. Tom Hanks is the major star and plays the titular captain as his boat is boarded by Somali pirates and take him hostage. This movie was based on a true event, although I have read they have taken some liberties with the story for the purpose of drama.

This movie begins by following both Captain Phillips and a Somali pirate crew as they each go about their lives. It quickly becomes clear that the movie is portraying them as being on a collision course as the pirates are out looking for cargo ships to make a fortune from and Captain Phillips is captaining one of the said cargo ships. Showing the interactions between Phillips and his crew as well as the vicious way that the Somali pirate becomes the captain of his crew was a good way to highlight the differences between the Americans and Somalians with a very show-don’t-tell policy.

What follows is then a tense encounter between the two captains as Phillips tries to keep his crew safe while the pirates try to find the crew in order to have more hostages to ransom. Phillips achieves his goals through bluffing and his knowledge of the ship, but has to attempt to manage the rising viciousness of the pirate crew as they get more frustrated by the lack of progress in achieving their goals. Eventually the pirate crew make off with the captain as a hostage, and then the United States Navy and the Seals show up. With that, it becomes clear how the skinny Somalian pirates are completely overmatched but have come too far to back out.

This movie reminded me of Argo, and mostly in a good way. This is a movie where the Americans are overpowered and are more focused on staying alive then being action heroes (at least until the climax) and a focus on show-don’t-tell to convey the emotions of the characters and how the plot progresses. There is a tense battle of nerves between the captain and the pirates as both their situations become more and more desperate. The actors used to portray the Captain Phillips, the American crew and the Somali pirates are well chosen and they all manage to convey the emotions that they are feeling.



Overall I found Captain Phillips a highly enjoyable movie. At no point in the two-plus hours of it’s running time did I feel bored as I was caught up in the tension of the crew. From the inevitable collision of the two crews to the climax the film kept a good pace mixing anticipation and suspence-heavy pauses with keeping the plot moving forward.

4 Somalian pirates out of 5.