Greengrass combines realism and thrills to create tense and riveting true-to-life drama

Rating: 8/10 (23 October 2013)

At first glance there was nobody more apt to direct the story of an ordinary sea captain's struggle against armed Somali pirates than director, Paul Greengrass. From his two forays into the Bourne franchise – The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum – to his powerful and tragic United 93, he can always be relied on to find that perfect balance between realism and thrilling cinema. In Captain Phillips, the story of the eponymous captain's fight for survival against the aforementioned pirates, Greengrass once again delivers. There are no eye patches and swashbuckling in this true-to-life story; only the desperate resourcefulness of an average family man attempting to run down the clock until his rescuers arrive. The film opens with a quick but effective comparison between Phillips (Tom Hanks) and the leader of the pirates who will later board his ship, Muse (Barkhad Abdi): Phillips discusses his son's academic performance with his wife (Catherine Keener) while Muse is woken by rifle fire in his village before being ordered by his gun-toting bosses to get to work and make some money. The next time we meet him – after seeing Phillips assiduously going over safety protocols on his cargo ship in Oman – Muse is hand picking men for the mission which will ultimately pit him against Phillips in a battle of minds and wits. This brief but detailed opening perfectly captures the vastly different backgrounds but similar structures of these men's lives: both have to work for a living but it is ultimately the environment they come from which will determine the nature of this work. I will return to this portrayal of the two men a little later on. Phillips' initial misgivings about the cargo ship's route plan prove more than justified when, rounding the Horn of Africa, two unannounced ships are spotted on the ship's radar. As Muse and his men gradually close in on the Alabama while Phillips radios for emergency assistance and readies his crew, you get the feeling that the tension for the audience – never really on a par with the ship's crew – should be greater than it is. Perhaps understandably, the build up to the hijacking of the Alabama is not quite as tense or traumatic as Greengrass's re-enactment of Flight 93's hijacking. The events of 9/11 will forever remain fixed in people's memory, making the build up to that hijacking more difficult because of the audience's prior knowledge that no help was going to come for the victims. With Captain Phillips, on the other hand, the audience hasn't really got completely under the skin of the character by the time the pirates arrive, making it more difficult to empathise with his situation. However, like United 93, the film's tension is expertly maintained throughout the entire duration, continuing to bubble under the surface during brief interludes in the action. After successfully preventing hostile takeover on the first day, the pirates resume where they left off the next, changing their tactics while increasing their determination. Even in the exciting stand off between Phillips's crew and the pirates, as the latter attempt to attach their boarding ladder to the ship, Greengrass deserves credit for his portrayal of the Somalis. Even though these men are engaging in piracy and are overtly hostile to the ship's crew, the film nevertheless avoids the standard portrayal of clichéd villains, conveying the danger they put themselves under, and their determination, to carry out their mission. In spite of the ship's efforts to repel the threat the ladder is attached to the ship and then boarded by the pirates. What follows is an exciting and realistic depiction of an ordinary captain's efforts to protect both his own and his crew's lives. Phillips is simply the captain of a cargo ship not a war ship therefore his efforts are not put into judo-chopping the 'argh' out of the pirates but subtly deceiving them in order to save his crew from being taken hostage. This game of cat and mouse between Phillips and Muse provides some of the film's best moments as the captive captain attempts to stay one step ahead of the alert and suspicious pirate. Hanks is terrific as Phillips, giving his character an everyday heroism while never venturing into action hero territory. It is the character of Muse and the accompanying performance by Abdi however, which is the highlight of the film. Like United 93's hijackers, Greengrass humanises Muse but never to the extent of condoning his actions. As previously mentioned, like Phillips, Muse has bosses to answer to and must do what he can to appease them as well as make a living for himself. In a great scene, in response to Phillips's assertion that there is more to life than fishing and piracy, Muse matter-of-factly states, 'Maybe in America', again emphasising the uncomfortable truth that people resort to dreadful acts when their environment gives them no other alternative. Apart from an exhilaratingly-scored scene of Navy SEALS jumping from an aircraft, Greengrass expertly maintains this engaging realism for the film's duration as the growing hysteria and panic of both the pirates and Phillips culminates in a tensely riveting finale. Greengrass also deserves credit for not shying away from the aftermath of the hostage situation; instead focusing on it with sometimes uncomfortable and personal detail. Captain Phillips may not equal United 93 in terms of tension and power but it deserves full marks for its unflinching portrayal of sometimes uncomfortable world truths as well as for the terrific performances of Hanks and Abdi which anchor it. The end result is a film which, due once again to Greengrass, proves that exciting and riveting cinema is possible with everyday characters who are put in extremely dangerous but unfortunately real situations.
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