A Fine Film Doing its Best to Stick Close to Reality, but not a Wholesome One

Rating: 6/10 (29 December 2013)

When it comes to films premised on true events, a key priority in my ratings would be how close the film is able to convey what has happened in the real-life accounts. I have studied various accounts - testimony of Capt Philips, the director, the disatisfied crewman and the sole survivor of the Somali pirate group - I think the film has done its best to compress a 5-day ordeal into a two-hour movie and remained focused on the essence of the story, despite dramaticizing certain events.
To me, the true magic of Captain Philips lies in Tom Hank's acting performance of despair and trauma during the final 30-minutes of the movie. The performance from the Somali supporting actors was another surprise to me, even though I can sense some hints of stereotyping.
Tom Hank's version of Captain Philips was too talkative (as a hostage), making the Somali looked like they were easy targets for manipulation. Like other American-military theme based films, Captain Philips is still a victim of romanticizing the American glory, as the balance was being overly skewed towards the perception of the Americans (especially from a talkative Tom Hanks). It was reported that the Somali survivor's accounts was not captured in this movie. I think the film would have been more realistic if it was made in a slightly different feel, allowing the pirates more room to express their intentions and/ or how they feel about their actions.
My biggest disappointment of all was that the movie does not fulfil one criteria to be having >8/10 rating - it is not wholesome. I am not talking about the fact that it ignored the accounts of some other crew members, or the account of the Somali pirates. I was referring to how the film doesn't do enough to fit into the bigger picture. Although both factors would help make the film better, I understand the limitations this film had. Captain Philips was one of the most dramatic newsflow (that involves just an individual, essentially) since the Obama administration. It was portrayed in the movie (which did happened in real life) that a dozen of SEAL guys and a big US Navy warship were up against a small lifeboat of 4 Somali pirates. What happens to the other ships captured by other pirates that probably summed up to 200 crews as hostages? It was reported by NY Times that "Every country will be treated the way it treats us," Abdullahi Lami, one of the pirates holding a Greek ship anchored in the pirate den of Gaan, a central Somali town, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying in a telephone interview. "In the future, America will be the one mourning and crying." Honestly, the movie could have dedicated 10-20 minutes for that.