This is indeed Africa

Rating: 8/10 (16 October 2013)

In the great Leonardo DiCaprio film Blood Diamond, the standard explanation for why the political situation is so screwed up in that continent wherever you go it was simply T I A, This is Africa. And one of the most screwed up places in that continent is Somalia which has not had an effective central government in years now.
It's a country totally devolved now with a bunch of warlords, some with ties to Moslem supremacist groups, others have no ideology but profit. With no government to rein them in, some on the coast have discovered that piracy is an effective way of making money.
So what starts out as two small skiffs with outboard motors and four men in each boat turns into one skiff with four armed men who get lucky and find a whole in the boat's defenses and board the USS Maersk Alabama, a freighter with a good cargo and commanded by Tom Hanks playing the real life Captain Richard Phillips who becomes a hostage of the pirates as they leave in one of the ship's lifeboats.
After that it becomes a battle of wits between Hanks and pirate leader Barkhad Abdi and will the US Navy effect a rescue. This battle is at the heart of Captain Phillips. This man is mister average American, no superhero and doesn't claim to be. His responses to these volatile pirates are a matter of having his training kick in.
What I did not understand is why a merchant freighter going into those waters was not armed. Certainly in World War II eventually they were armed. I wouldn't advocate arming our whole merchant fleet but when you're sailing in waters like off the Somali coast it would seem the prudent thing to do.
Tom Hanks gives a wonderful performance leading a very well cast film showing sailors and pirates caught up in a bad situation.