Movie Piracy - Greengrass gives us a tense thrilling true life tale of aquatic action, courageous captains and human hearts

Rating: 9/10 (14 October 2013)

Like it's contemporary "Rush", this film turns real life headline events into a powerful film that both chronicles events more incredible than mere fiction could create, and also (more importantly) makes for a fully satisfying cinematic experience.
Based on the true-life book written about the incident, it tells the story of the 2009 journey of the freighter Maersk Alabama and it's captain Richard Phillips (Played here by Tom Hanks) who ran into trouble with the then very active Somali pirate gangs off the East African coast en route to deliver aid to Kenya. A small but determined band of pirates, led by Muse (played by newcomer Barkhad Abdi) takes over the ship, hoping to ransom it off for millions with the insurance companies, but the ships Wiley crew managed to outsmart them and make an occupation impossible. Forced to escape in the Alabama's motorized life-boat, they take the contents of the ships safe ($30,000) and Phillips as a hostage, hoping to take him back to Somalia for ransom. With the US navy taskforce alerted, a dangerous game of cat and mouse ensues both between the Navy and the pirates and between the pirates themselves, divided between the reasonable Muse, the dangerous, violent hothead Bilal (Barkhad Abdirahman) the worried Najee (Faysal Ahmed) and the scared new boy kid of the group Elmi (Mahat Ali) with whom Phillips forms a particularly paternal bond. As the Navy closes in with orders to stop them one way or another, the tensions rise to beyond boiling point as Phillips tries to play the disparate band off against each other from within the boat itself.
The film is directed by Paul Greengrass, the documentary maker who became a sensation with the "Bourne" series, introducing to the cinema world the now often imitated, over (and inappropriately) used and clichéd elements of "Greengrass verite", such as shaky cam, focus pulls, circling around, dramatic cutting between players in a situation around the world, etc. As with his previous ripped from the headlines drama "United 93" Greengrass' style serves the real life dramatic events well, putting us right into the action, presenting it dispassionately yet not coldly, leaving Hollywood mores and narrative tropes at home as he just tells it like it is and lets the events speak for themselves.
The film's structure is as you would imagine it to be. It starts off by introducing our two key players, Phillips and Muse, with a basic knowledge of their motivations and characteristics. Phillips is shown to be a loving family man (with cameoing Catherine Keener as his wife) yet aware of the increasingly difficult dog eat dog world his children will inherit. Muse on the other hand is shown as an ambitious man, full of bravado and self-confidence, yet also very much small fry in the criminal underworld he inhabits, with a boss demanding targets and empty coffers. We then follow the Alabama and the pirate ship as they cross paths. The action starts 20 minutes in as Muse's band relentlessly follow the Alabama despite its superior speed and height with a cat and mouse game that sees the pirates get a foothold. Then it is another game of cat & mouse aboard as the crewmen hide and use their superior knowledge of the ship to cripple it and lay traps for the pirates, injuring Elmi and capturing Muse. Everything seems to end with their defeat and escape by lifeboat, but the desperate Muse, who cannot bear the shame and loss of going home empty handed, takes Phillips hostage and so begins the final cat and mouse, between Navy and pirates, and between Phillips & pirates. The action here cuts frantically between the Navy warships, SEAL commandos and the smaller battle inside the boat, as Phillips tries to use reason to make them see the error of their actions, until the final confrontation and Phillip's release. Greengrass really makes you feel the tension, with a ticking clock almost audible beneath; gripping you to your seat as you wait to see how the events we know happened will unfold anyway, all aided by a brilliant score by Henry Jackman.
The film is neutral, without real heroes or villains (save perhaps Bilal the heavy) dramatically correct in showing us both sides of this story while at the same time not glamourizing nor condoning the pirates (though we see they are just trying to make a buck like everyone else) and makes us sympathise with them a little, even though their own arrogance, naivety, over-confidence and stupid decision making are the ultimate causes of their own doom. Also we see they are just infantry, lorded over by the big warlords and bosses who send men to fight while keeping most of the loot themselves, betrayed and abandoned when things go wrong.
The acting is similarly muted and unshowy, yet effective. Hanks as the title character is typically Hanksian, a strong, solid man, humble yet intelligent, dedicated to job & family, dealing with life's difficulties with good old quiet American pluck. On his crew are numerous familiar character actors, including Corey Johnson, David Warshofsky & Michael Chernus, all good. The pirates, all played by Somali emigrees, are also well played, denoting their characters well and making us both fear, loath, and sympathise with them, especially Abdi as Muse, who throughout is portrayed as Phillip's mirror image, two similar men on opposite sides (a familiar narrative idea) The Navy team is also solid, led by Yul Vazquez & Max Martini (of "Pacific Rim") among others.
An excellent, gripping, tense thriller, true life story and tale of human courage and resolve under incredible circumstances, it will make for a memorable night at the cinema and further proof of the original Greengrass at work.