Harrowing but true

Rating: 8/10 (19 November 2013)

Despite several people telling me not to bother going to see this film as it was predictable, I went anyway and thought it was quite brilliantly done. True, it was predictable if you knew the story, but to see the re-enactment of the whole sorry situation was a very great experience. The staging was brilliant and the acting by those portraying the Somalis was an eye-opener...the scenes in the lifeboat were harrowing (maybe a bit too drawn out insofar as the film was concerned) but the movie certainly showed how Americans rightly protect their own. Tom Hanks really had to act brilliantly in the last half of the film, after a very standard sort of role in the first half. I felt it was 15 to 20 minutes too long, but also a very good film