Captain Phillips
(USA, 134 min.)
Dir. Paul Greengrass, Writ. Billy Ray
Starring: Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi, Barkhad Abdirahman,
Faysal Ahmed, Mahat M. Ali.
 |
| Tom Hanks stars in Columbia Pictures' Captain Phillips. Photo: Jasin Boland. © 2013 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. |
“Maybe in America. Maybe in America,” drawls Muse (Barkhad
Abdi) the pirate captain as he trains a gun on his hostage, American Captain
Phillips (Tom Hanks), who is trying to persuade the Somali that there must be
more to life than fishing and kidnapping people. “Maybe in America.” The line
is of memorable significance in the decidedly American Captain Phillips, helmed by Brit director Paul Greengrass (United 93, The Bourne Ultimatum) and scripted by Billy Ray (The Hunger Games). There’s an
undercurrent of critique that only rises to the surface of this seaward
thriller thanks to Muse’s provocative musing. It’s mostly superficial rhetoric,
though, amidst Captain Phillips’s
true-life saga of gung-ho heroism and idealism in the face of adversity.
Hanks stars as Captain Richard Phillips, whose cargo ship the MV Maersk Alabama was hijacked off the coast of Somali in 2009. Hanks has been somewhat off his game lately with the recent duds of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and Cloud Atlas, but his captivating performance as the stalwart, yet fallible Captain ranks as one of his best. Phillips is a return to form for Hanks.
The role of the real-life Captain plays nicely to Hanks’ persona
as the American everyman. He’s Jollier than Santa Claus in almost any scenario—even
with a Tommy gun in Road to Perdition,
Hanks is the nicest guy in the film. The final moments of Captain Phillips, however, are a remarkable feat for Hanks as his
voyage with the Somali pirates enters the water of Kathryn Bigelow-ish suspense.
Hanks releases the tension of the finale much like Jessica Chastain does in
that bravura final shot of Zero Dark
Thirty: It’s a feat of emotionally-charged acting that conveys all the
shock, fear, and pressure that Phillips has kept in check during the ordeal.
Captain Phillips
is firmly anchored by Hanks’ turn, but this big production is a case where the
Captain is much stronger than the ship. Hanks’ likability ensures that the
audience is on edge as viewers wait for the film’s inevitable outcome. The film
is based on a book co-authored by Phillips himself, so there’s never any doubt
that Captain America will come ashore safely. The film has very little conflict
for a film with hostage missions on the high seas.
Muse might remind the audience that there is something about
the American way of doing things that spins the tide in wayward directions. Captain Phillips takes only the most
action-heavy, and therefore most cinematic, moments of story in its
dramatization of the hijacking. Not once does the film cut to Phillips’s family
at home. (Catherine Keener appears as Phillips’s wife in a fleeting
introduction.) It’s just Hanks and the pirates for much of the film’s long 134
minutes.
The spectacle of Captain
Phillips might seem especially noticeable when framed against this year’s
other marine hostage drama, A Hijacking.
A Hijacking, a Danish production,
omits the riveting ordeal of the actual hostage-taking that comprises the bulk
of Phillips’s first half. A Hijacking is twice the white-knuckle
affair, though, even though it is mostly an affair of trying to find resolution
about the irreconcilable greed of both the pirates and the Capitalist suits
trying to get their men back with as good as a deal as possible. A Hijacking sets up the dramatic action
so that the crux of the film lies on the transaction in which both parties of
the negotiation are trading the hijacked men like nickels and dimes.
A Hijacking omits
the conflict that immediately—and arguably rightfully—aligns the audience with
Captain Phillips during the drama. Nothing justifies the pirates’ actions, but
the film throws in some mild allusions
to Western idealism—making it big by rising to the top and being the hero—as a
dream that has tainted the likes of Muse, who makes an act of war on American
capitalism and trade by piracy. “I’m the Captain now,” Muse quips when he
assumes control of the bridge like a gangster in an old Hollywood film.
The hero-foe dynamic of the onscreen hostage-taking invites inevitable
racial politics into Captain Phillips,
whereas A Hijacking never pits the
pirates as mean of villains as the Danish suits. The film nevertheless offers one
mean one-note bloodthirsty pirate to offer some cackling villainy. One pirate
serves mostly as filler. Then there is Bilal (Barkhad Abdirahman), the token
nice pirate whose youth and kindness convey to Captain Phillips an
understanding that the actions of the pirates are wrong. Bilal embodies a
character that nitpicky readers might call The Noble Savage. He tries to do the
right thing at just the right time to earn some redemption and thus act as a
credit to his race.
Then, finally, there is Muse. Muse, played by Abdi with
compelling self-awareness and calculated mania, is a worthy foil for Captain
Phillips. He is an underdog wanting to become the Captain of the ship. Captain Phillips even gives some early
exposition to Muse’s story to show him treated like the runt of the litter by
his fellow pirates and thus eager to prove himself a leader and provider. Muse
is taken to justice, though, under the same gangster movie philosophy that
playing outside the rules is no way to reach the top. “Maybe in America,” he
thinks, searching for a foreign pot of gold that he can only dream of
attaining. The quartet of renegade fishermen cover all the bases that Captain Phillips needs to inject an element
of xenophobia to keep the audience at home in suspense and to balance off any
charges that the film itself is racist—it gives one pirate a back story and
makes another somewhat redeemed. A fifty-fifty trade. Since it is based on a
true story, though, there is no changing the fact that Phillips is Caucasian and
the four pirates are Somali.
Captain Phillips does
its best to float in spite of the muddy waters of its racial politics. It’s a
mostly solid thriller thanks to Paul Greengrass’s taut, gritty style, which
somewhat overdoes his signature hyper-handheld camerawork. The film is dizzying
to the point of seasickness. The cinematography of Captain Phillips feels markedly anti-Hollywood though, thus giving
the film an energy that doesn’t always jive with mainstream studio aesthetic
and with the classical heroism of the story. The Captain is consistently
compelling, though, and Hanks’ performance does Phillips a great deal of justice.
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Captain Phillips is now playing in wide release.
