Engaging and tense with very good acting

Rating: 8/10 (21 April 2015)

Tom Hanks carries this movie. I don't know how, I think it's his humanity. He's vulnerable but not weak, clever but makes mistakes, professional but afraid and he takes risks. His life doesn't seem exciting but it seems real. He doesn't want to die, he doesn't want his ship to get taken over or stolen from. We see the struggle between his rationality and emotions. He's in most scenes and makes them worthwhile. Gives us a lens to see them through, or something like that.
I was worried the movie might be boring, the same old formula I've seen too many times. A tense hostage situation, culture clashes, people crying and shouting and arguing, making dumb decisions, jumping between extreme emotional states. Why do we even watch this kind of stuff? And the whole thing's on a boat? How is that going to be entertaining for a whole movie? Well, somehow it works pretty well. I think mainly because it feels completely real and it's sincere. No phony emotions or speeches or moments. It's generally quite exciting because the stakes are high but there are so many different possible outcomes. You don't know where the film is going or how it will turn out. The situation changes over time. There's often good news and bad news.
Was Captain Phillips reckless for going through areas known for the presence of Somali pirates? Maybe, I don't really know. It does seem unnecessarily risky. Is the movie about his braveness or toughness, his ability to survive? I'm not sure. I think it's more about the experience itself. It's an intense ride that doesn't stop. Sometimes scary, sometimes more calm. It gives a new context to your regular life. Shows what you're made of, brings out a different side of you. Maybe you'll like what you'll see and maybe you won't. You might not have known you had that inner strength. You might have deep regrets about what you did on that fateful day.
The final scenes are the most powerful, after things have been "resolved". We finally get a break from the highly strung events of the past couple of hours. We start to see it all in context, the reality of it, that it wasn't a dream or a nightmare. We realise how intense it all was. I often find I sweat more after I stop exercising. Similarly, it seems the shock only really hits the characters after the events of this movie are over.
The camera work does it's job and isn't distracting. There is no preaching or forcing of us as to what to think or feel. The focus is on characters, choices, arguments, escalating tension, hidden motivations, lies and attempts to uncover them. The 4 pirates are all new actors and they do incredibly well. They're just people but they're edgy. They are certainly human but perhaps from a casually violent background that is difficult to comprehend and understand.
Anyway, the movie achieves what it sets out to do. It captures a variety of emotional states, you can argue about how things might have turned out differently and whether people made the right decisions or not. This is not a deep movie but in many ways it's quite a powerful experience. It was far more engaging than I had expected.