More interesting from the pirate's perspective...

Rating: 6/10 (3 November 2013)

Paul Greengrass seems to live in his hectic shakycam aesthetic. With dull hues of blues and browns, he likes muddy stories of self-preservation and perseverance and tries his best not to sugarcoat the feeling with his style. While the inevitable tragedy of United 93 was more compelling and free to dodge developing characters, Captain Phillips does not have that luxury as it puts its ending on the poster. Argo has the same problem. We know how it ends yet the journey offers us no particular insight into a debate or a way of life that leads me to be bewildered at how anyone can possibly find these films exciting or tense. Tom Hanks has been receiving raves for his performance which is being called worthy of a comeback. He was good, especially in his hyped final 10 minutes, but I do feel as though he was underwritten. Hanks has always been notable for his portrayal of the ordinary man and here in Captain Phillips he's able to shed off his star persona and take on that role once more. But I don't think that's enough.
Sometimes I feel like perhaps the writers did too much of a good job of making Phillips unsympathetic and the main antagonist pirate Muse, played admirably by Barkhad Abdi, sympathetic. In fact, its approach to the story feels so routine and uninvolving that I found myself more compelled by the idea of looking at it through the opposite perspective. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Phillips was a villainous character, you can look at any film through the eyes of its bad guy and call Indiana Jones the villain, but that doesn't make it a more interesting film. Captain Phillips is an exception as Muse's hypothetical 'hero's journey' hits fascinating story beats as Phillips constantly gets in his way through lies, manipulation and betrayal. Not that Muse's desire is justified, but his escape from his home certainly is. And in traditional Greengrass sense he gets the ironic tragic end. But then this perspective is more of an add-on if anything and not a deliberate alternative.
Even so, Muse's henchmen are definitely bad and Phillips' crew are definitely good, and that's Hollywood's way of making the roles clear. It's just incredibly difficult to invest myself in Phillips' survival due to his behaviour and knowing how it ends. The only heroic act I found was protecting his crew, which he did, for a little while, then the film separates itself from that tension. In the second half, it just feels like military propaganda in the navy's near-perfect execution of a rescue mission. Fact or not, but this is the sugarcoating I know Greengrass doesn't want. Perfection is boring, flaws and obstacles would be more interesting. Muse has all the impossible-seeming obstacles. As usual, the technical aspects are reliably great, perhaps Greengrass' finest use of his shakycam which has had to grow on me over the years, but unfortunately they facilitate a bland film, redeemed slightly by its 'villain.' Really hope this doesn't end up as overpraised in awards as it already is.
6/10