An overlong middle hour ruins a potentially great film

Rating: 6/10 (28 October 2013)

Captain Phillips - ** 1/2* Based upon a real event, Captain Phillips recreates the hijacking of an American Cargo ship by Somalian pirates in 2009. The film was slow and tedious in parts while being exciting and effective in others. Unfortunately for me the tedious far outweighed the exciting, and I found this film to be somewhat of a disappointment.
The film sets it's premise excellently; the short scene between Phillips and his wife humanizes the Captain and gives Greengrass space to develop. We soon come to see Phillips as a hardworking, capable Captain with a very strict handle on his crew. The tension then begins to build as the plot begins to develop, and I was very much involved with the film at this stage.
It is once the film gets right into the thick of its content that all the good work at the beginning is undone, and the tension begins to evaporate, causing the film to be incredibly tedious in some parts. Especially through the middle hour, I would have been quite content to fall asleep - it really was that slow.
Despite some of the film's weaknesses, Greengrass does an excellent job of developing his two central characters, and the pirates are depicted brilliantly; neither villains nor heroes - just men doing their job. Billy Ray's screenplay also provides for some fantastic interaction between the two men, and some of the film's best viewing comes through in the intelligent, effective conversation between the two.
Hanks does an unsurprisingly excellent job, and newcomer Barkhad Abdi's gritty portrayal of the head pirate is really quite astounding, more so considering that this is his Hollywood debut. If it were not for an overlong second half which completely eases the tension, Captain Phillips could have been a much better film. Despite this it is still decent - if not boring - seaside viewing.