Gripping film that will take you hostage to the very end...

Rating: 8/10 (17 November 2013)

You got to admire film directors and producers who take a gamble. With this film they could have played safe and stuck to clichés. Yet instead this film is a brave portrayal of its characters in a tense situation that is as fascinating as any piece of great fiction.
We have Tom Hanks playing the captain, portraying the title role with a mixture of emotions without the need to force feed the point to the viewers. Courageous but frightened, intelligent but still feeling lost. It's an intriguing position.
The protagonists are Somalian pirates, who rather than being written as some set of simple Bond villains, they instead are shown to be again a mixture of characteristics: loathsome and greedy, but really chancers who are ill-prepared and desperate, in over their heads. To the immense credit of the director, he has avoided some cheap simple and racist creation, and you feel you get an insight into these men's mentality.
This was a tense thriller, a very frightening film too. This fact based film based on true events does leave the viewer on edge wondering what will happen next. It does surprise and all will find this film engrossing despite the discomfort they may feel through many points of the film.
I'd recommend it highly. It's a truly great film.