A Very Good Movie!

Rating: 8/10 (18 October 2013)

We live in a very polarized world today. Everything has to be painted black or white, good or bad. But in reality there is no such thing as purity. Our "one or the other" mentality is wrong. There is always a shade of gray, and Captain Phillips reminds us of this in a way that few movies every do.
The story is that of a freighter ship captain who is sailing around the horn of Africa when his ship is attacked by four Somali Pirates. Captain Phillips is quick to think and he ends up possibly saving the lives of his crew by convincing the Somalis to leave the ship on one of the escape boats, however in the process they take him captive. Paul Greengrass directs and he does a marvelous job of engaging the audience. This is not a passive film, but one that must be watched in Earnest. Editor Christopher Rouse deserves just as much credit as Greengrass for this. His masterful editing makes the near 2 and a half hour movie fly by and it allows the film to sustain tension until its thrilling end. Henry Jackman composed a wonderful score for the film, even if it can be a little generic at times. My one and only complaint about the film is its cinematography (by Barry Ackroyd) which relies too heavily on shaky-cam. While it gives it a sense of realness at times, it's extensive use was slightly nauseating.
But the heart of the movie is Tom Hanks who gives his best performance in over a decade (and maybe his best performance ever!) as the titular character. This is one of those rare films where I don't feel like I'm watching Tom Hanks at all, it genuinely feels like I'm watching another person entirely. Throughout the movie Hanks' Phillips remains surprisingly calm and level headed as he deals with these Somali pirates all the while with a gun pointed at his head, but when the action is over and Phillips is finally safe, he breaks down in one of the best acted scenes of the last few years. He does this without hardly even speaking, but by only lying on a medical table. He sits there confused, disoriented and shaking madly. He can't even hear or comprehend the questions the medical team is asking him. It's terrifying, heart breaking and even beautiful to watch, and it speaks to the amazing feat pulled off by the real Captain Richard Phillips.
The movie feels very similar in style to Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty, even if it isn't quite as well crafted, because it offers us a very subjective viewpoint. This isn't a "f*ck yeah America!" kind of movie. And Greengrass along with writer Billy Ray were very brave in portraying the Somali pirates, not necessarily as villains, but as real people with real problems. They are not presented as bad people. They are just poor fishermen who made bad decisions. Barkhad Abdi plays the leader of the Somali pirates, named Muse, and he does a fantastic job. This is Abdi's first role in a movie, as it is for all those playing Somali pirates. Once again I have to give props to Greengrass for taking the bold risk of choosing unknown and untested Somali-American actors to play the pirates, and it is a risk that payed off spectacularly. Through their performances we get to see these characters fully realized. They are not all bad people, in yet they did terrible things. Like all of us, their true character lies in a shade of gray. And that is something we need to remember from time to time. We need to know that there is no such thing as the good guys and the bad guys, despite what the super hero movies tell us. We all lie somewhere in between.