O, Captain, My Captain. All Hail the Captain! Captain Phillips was a pretty good film.

Rating: 8/10 (6 November 2013)

Captain Phillips is an interesting historic event biopic action thriller directed by Paul Greengrass. Paul Greengrass is well known for his series of film dealing with realistic portrayal of terrorism acts ranging from his work on 2006's United 93 to his James Bourne's films. So, when ask to make a biopic of merchant mariner Captain Richard Phillips, it made sense for him. Captain Phillips stars Tom Hanks as the captain who was taken hostage by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean during the Maersk Alabama hijacking in 2009 led by Abduwali Muse (Barkhad Abdi). The first American cargo ship to be hijacked in two hundred years. Rather than paint the pirates as evil one-dimension bad guys, the film does show the desperation of the Somali pirates, to take on the huge ship. The film does show the complex portrait of the myriad effects of globalization which I love. While, the film isn't telling us to root for the pirates; it's not telling us to boo them as well. I think the heroism of Captain Phillips makes a nice little sub-plot in the film, but is not the whole theme deserving the title. Yes, the film is mostly about his story of the events, but other people indeed play a part of the real life events such as the crew members and the US Navy. So to call the film just 'Captain Phillips' is kinda an insult to them. It's hard to spoil this movie, since its based on a real life event, pretty much everybody in the world heard about. Everybody knows what happened and how it ended. Let's remember that Chief Engineer Perry (David Warshofsky) was the one who seized the leader pirate for the exchange, and also previously disable the systems of the ship. The only thing brave, Phillips did consequentially went with the pirates on the lifeboat. The rest of the rescue, was because U.S Navy play their cards right. There been a number of criticize of the film due to this belief that Phillips looks like all out hero that single handed took out the pirates. It isn't the film fault. This controversial of what really happen those few days in 2009 been up in question since Richard Phillips wrote his autography book, "A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea (2010)" in which the screenplay is based on. Since writing it, Phillips was criticized for taking the wrong course too close to Somalia, ignoring warning emails, keeping them away from his crew. Also, they are criticize him for his lacking weapons knowledge in dangerous waters. The crew was off-route and performing a lifeboat drill when they noticed the pirates approaching the Maersk Alabama. When Phillips was informed of this, he ordered the crew to complete the drill instead of taking pirate defense stations. Then he allow the pirates to take cash on board. So a few of the crew, believe that this event was cause by Captain Phillips willful disregard for their safety to the point that they are suing the Waterman Steamship Corporation and Maersk Line for nearly $50 million. Another fact missing from the film is that they were two hijackings during an 18 hour period, as opposed to the one shown in the film. Despite these inaccurate facts, the film does keep you onboard with its near authentic story. Tom Hanks was extraordinary as the smart ass talking Captain and his skills as an actor are demonstrated in the whole film, but it's the last five minutes that is gripping. This is where Tom Hanks shows his acting chops unleashing the toll of the ordeal the Captain went through. The good thing about the film is how claustrophobic it makes you feel as if you stuck in the middle of the ocean in a floating coffin, surrounded by people that wants to kill you in a small boat. The action is great as the film keeps the audience in the film. There is rarely any slow shots. The only one, I can think of is the opening to the film where Phillips go to the airport, as it serve no purpose. It should had just start at him arriving at the boat docks. Some people think the film is bit too jingoism or propagandistic for the ill-prepared pirates to be taken as a serious threat. In this film, the pirates are portray as little dumb and weak children with guns than menacing. The four untrained and anxious guys didn't really hijack the ship, anyways as they had no clue how to truly control the huge vessel. In the end, the film has a pretty predictable outcome even if you haven't heard the news story. You knew that the pirates wasn't going to get away with the crime, so it took a lot of thriller out of the story, when coming in. In my opinion, it's no way near as interesting as 2012's Zero Dark Thirty or 2001's Black Hawk Down because in those films you can see the enemy as a threat. Maybe, if the film open up showing us the death of the Chinese crew member who was kill in 2007 in a pirate hijacking, maybe, the audience can take them more serious. In my view, it's was a bit one-sided, four malnourished men with black-market Kalashnikovs wasn't going to get a chance against the large strong modern tech US Navy. The film felt like a weird version of David VS Goliath where Goliath wins. America loves films portraying themselves as the underdogs who somehow win, in which this film lacks as the US Navy is portray like emotionless overpowered automata cyborgs creatures. It's hard to root for somebody that has all the cards and emotionless. Overall: Hard to be too invested in this film, but it's still worth checking out.