A Lightning-Tense Thriller!

Rating: 9/10 (22 December 2014)

Captain Phillips hearkens upon a story based off contemporary global issues and one of these issues is pirates. Not Blackbeard-style pirates, but more along the lines of modern Somalian pirates whom prey upon ships in their waters. This movie is a riveting tale about once incident in 2009 and how the Americans, led by Richard Phillips and the pirates try to outfox each other. The film is nothing short of tense and taut and if the film was even tenser, your mind would explode in half. This is the cat-and-mouse game at its finest. The acting is great and I even liked the shaky-camera route, as the film does have some Bourne elements to it.
Paul Greengrass, the man behind the Jason Bourne sequels and United 93, directs a film about a captain of a merchant ship, Richard Phillips is taken hostage by Somalian pirates, led by Abduwali Muse. Trying to stay alive and make it home safely, Phillips must stay ahead of the game and predict every move Muse will make.
The film has fantastic acting. Tom Hanks is splendid as always and one of the emotional scenes involves him in the very end. As good as Hanks is, it might surprise you that newcomer Barkhad Abdi matches everything Hanks delivers and their scenes together are just powerful. It's very uncommon to have an actor come out of nowhere and be nominated for an Oscar. That's how good Abdi was, especially when going head-to-head with Tom Hanks.
Overall, Captain Phillips is an excellent movie that sheds light on how piracy is a problem in Africa/the Middle East and the dangers they pose on American ships. The film is written very well and it has some of the best dialog of 2013. The interchange between Hanks and Abdi just shows it all. Like what he did in United 93, Greengrass takes a true story and keeps it grounded without sacrificing any of the emotion that is required to keep the characters interesting. This is another success for Greengrass and a taut, tense thriller on the whole. I rate this film 9/10.