Ineresting, but too long

Rating: 7/10 (28 October 2013)

Pretty good tale based on true events, but dramatized and fictionalized for entertainment effect. Tom was an everyman ship captain, and was more or less the way we like to see him, but his role was not as humanly personal or as special as his parts were in Castaway, or Philadelphia, for example. We did not get to see much of the Tom Hanks that is so endearing to audiences for decades, as he was more of less just a ship captain doing his job here.
I do not like ships so the story had to be good to interest me, and it did a pretty good job of that even as I felt the film overall was too long and tried to sustain fear and suspense beyond what was believable for full effect, and especially the long and overdone part in the lifeboat. We could only be shocked by one or more "shoot him if he moves" statements, but there were way too many of those to sustain a high tension and believability level. To me, it finally became tedious. Also, from the few seamen I have known,, the crew on the ship appeared much too wimpy and scared for "real men". However, the Navy rescue scenes were involving and well done.
My main questions of the story are about ship security. Tens of millions of dollars of cargo and not one gun for security on the ship? How could that be? No arms or security system at all. A few weapons and that piracy would never have happened. And, no wonder Republicans want a big defense budget, as the cost to taxpayers of providing Navy security for private business ships has to be huge, and of course, free to them. Even taxpayers who never buy any of the products on that ship have to pay for that protection. That is just not right. Those private ships should have their own security and not military security paid by the American taxpayer.
I am sure our gov't will get right on that.