Fine acting performance from Tom Hanks and a near perfect acting debut for Barkhad Abdi.

Rating: 9/10 (8 March 2015)

When this film came out, the plot, the setting, the choice of actors all seemed to tick the boxes for me. A tense nerve-wracking thriller based on a true story and the best bit of all, featuring Tom Hanks, one of the most talented and influential actors of all time. This seemed like a perfect opportunity for Hanks to shine and deliver another one of his near perfect portrayals and I can now safely say that this film exceeded my expectations because of his performance and his co-star Barkhad Abdi's, who single-handedly each provided two near perfect depictions of the hero and the villain.
Captain Phillips is a tense, nail-biting thriller that tells the story of Richard Phillips and his run-in with Somali pirates whilst delivering cargo on his ship. This film revolves around two key settings, SPOILERS AHEAD....
On his ship and on a lifeboat that the pirates commandeered from Phillips' cargo vessel. Not going into too much detail surrounding the story at each point, I'll only say that the scenes on the ship aren't as tense as the scenes on the lifeboat but are extremely nail-biting nonetheless. Near the end of the film, again, SPOILERS AHEAD....
When Hanks' escapes the lifeboat with the help of the US Navy, he gives a performance that can only be described as being worthy of an Oscar. Also a particularly chilling scene that involves the demise of the pirates shows Hanks portray Phillips' emotions at that point perfectly.
On the other hand, his co-star, Barkhad Abdi delivers a blood-curdling interpretation in his role as the main Somalian pirate, 'Muse'. Despite Abdi having no experience in acting, his portrayal of the titular villain ultimately earned him an Oscar nomination despite constantly being overshadowed by Hanks. Don't get me wrong, he delivers an extremely powerful performance but when you put an Oscar winning actor like Tom Hanks in with an actor with little to no acting experience, it's quite obvious who'll be the better of the two.
Overall this film provided a tense cinematic experience that combined the outstanding acting of the two main stars with the horrifying real-life ordeal of Captain Richard Phillips. The film itself was a rarity in that it featured an Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks and was good enough to keep me on the edge of my seat. However this film had one minor flaw that people might find extremely irritating, which is that despite the story being completely true to life, all the little details in the film weren't all correct. Despite this, I thoroughly enjoyed the film and I consider it to be one of Hanks' finest pieces of work and is definitely a potentially Oscar worthy film.