Greengrass only gets better with each film he makes.

Rating: 8/10 (16 January 2014)

Greengrass is a filmmaker who knows the importance of those thirty minutes. His style of filmmaking is perceptible. He builds his plot tenaciously, layers it thickly with emotion and dramatic tension and lets all hell break loose in the end. Scrap off the top and you'll find a textured plot underneath, neatly done and ready to be utilized for the knockout punch. 'Captain Phillips' is no different.
Being an ardent admirer of 'United 93', you might have already guessed how excited I was for yet another hijack-drama from Greengrass. I was positively stoked. But, you know, the problem was that the movie did not drizzle me with its magic right away. There's a long build-up involved to get the film going, give it its wheels, which details diligently how Captain Richard Phillips treats its crew. He's methodical, unerring and flinty. His crew envies and scorns him, but never doubts him. It's a well-etched character but it did not require the lengthy prologue.
And then, there's someone else who admires Phillips. Abduwali Muse, a young Somali pirate, winds up a crew of his own and strays into the Somali Basin to carry out a hijack. He works for a boss, who needs money, and Muse gets his hands dirty. He's determined, and even when it's a question of life or death, he stays put on his principles. He hijacks Phillips' ship after repeated attempts, and belittles Phillips' offer of thirty grand and a ship back to Somalia. I'm not a beggar, he tells Phillips, and holding the captain hostage, demands a shocking ten million. You've got to admire the courage of the young lad. He's not dangerous, he's even likable to some degree but he's like a ticking bomb that could go off any second. And go off it does.
For more than an hour, we see Phillips' attempts to convince the pirates to end everything peacefully, and to let everybody live in exchange for the thirty grand. The pacing is languid, but the film stays consistently engaging. Maybe the unpredictability of its guileful antagonist helps in keeping the tension palpable. Muse is diffident in his actions, he often turns to Phillips' advice when the Navy SEALS circle the ship, much to his comrades' chagrin.
Greengrass directs with equanimity, the air of a man who knows what he has and what he can do with what he has. He takes his time to set the tone of the film, establish his characters so well that we begin to understand them. We can predict their actions, their words, their thoughts. It's not a slip-up, that's genuinely great filmmaking. I could almost feel the dearth of oxygen when the film entered the thriller mode. Greengrass makes his characters tangible, keeps the plot rife with violent tension. And when the characters splutter dialogues, they vent some of the tension out with them. It's the kind of movie where the dialogues make a difference because they allow you a quick peek into the minds of the characters we have come to know. Shrewd.
But in the film's final thirty minutes, your breathing will grow increasingly ragged. Because knowing Greengrass and knowing what he can achieve with his films' denouements, I stopped trying to predict what's about to unfold. Well, the film was entirely predictable, seeing that it has been adapted from Captain Richard Phillips' autobiography, so it's not a give-away that we know how it'll end, is it? But how it gets there is something that made me stand up and applaud. One of the most unapologetically exciting action sequences I've seen in the recent cluster of films, the final showdown is nothing short of riveting. Skillfully executed, well crafted, acted and scored to perfection, the final moments live up to the kind of film 'Captain Phillips' promised it would be.
It's easy to find fantastic performances from each and every member of the cast in a Paul Greengrass film. And it's not a surprise that Greengrass manages to coax Hanks to give his best performance in years. I've been trying to find a word that effectively describes Hanks in Captain Phillips but every single adjective downplays his performance. I'll settle with brilliant but it's not even close, you know. Barkhad Abdi, a young newbie who plays Abdawali Muse, is equally captivating. Mr. Abdi, I'm your fan already.
The rest of the cast are efficacious in keeping a real sense of urgency at all times, ably backed by a tightly-wound, nifty script from Billy Ray, who relies heavily on words to keep the pace as brisk as possible.
'Captain Phillips' is a marvelous film that definitely ranks as one of the year's finest. A bit indulgent in places and a tad slow for a thriller, but technically sound and terrifically shot by virtuoso cinematographer Barry Ackroyd, it's a vitriolic drama that smothers you with its power but, in its final moments, leaves you moved. Keep a oxygen tank handy.