Might Have Worked Better With An Unknown Lead

Rating: 6/10 (28 April 2015)

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS tells the story of the MV Maresk Alabama which was the first US cargo ship ship to be hijacked in two hundred years . I haven't bothered to research the history of American cargo ships being hijacked but I'm making a very educated guess that last time it was common place it was the British Royal Navy who were doing the hijacking which led to the war of 1812 . Therefore it's ironic that an American story is being told via a British director in this case Paul Greengrass
Greengrass is a former producer of the ITV flagship current affairs show WORLD IN ACTION . Afterwards he got lucky with the Bourne sequels which had shaky cam and elliptical editing . It some ways CAPTAIN PHILLIPS is an uneasy amalgamation of realist cinema and social comment and the director wastes no time in showing the difference between America and Somalia . Captain Richard Phillips and his wife get in to their car and on the way to the docks discuss their son's career plans . Cut to Somalia where Abduwali Muse is woken from his corrugated iron shed by armed khat dealers . You can see instantly the point Greengrass is making with life in America being boring but stable and life in Somalia being dangerous and potentially short but I felt this point was a little bit too obvious to be successful in any way
As the film continues so does the cinema verite style . The Somalians decide to hijack a cargo ship and like the Somalian plan as a film some things work and some things don't . I always wondered how it possible for a handful of pirates to hijack a cargo ship but this is easily explained by bringing a set of ladders with them ! Simple as that and the story is simply told which isn't necessarily a criticism as a game of cat and mouse is played out . It's fairly tense even if you know the outcome but one thing that constantly left me puzzled is why if you're making a real life story filmed in a realist style we have a Hollywood big hitter in Tom Hanks playing the eponymous captain . I never got the impression I was watching a character undergoing trauma and Captain Phillips was Tom Hanks being Tom Hanks which does drag the story down . As it stands I can understand why the film picked up six Oscar nominations which ended with the movie winning none of them