Coastal View News
It is the ambition—maybe even the sole ambition—of “Captain
Phillips” to capture a certain real-life drama that occurred a little while ago.
There have been a lot of movies like this lately. It’s as if we really want to
see what happened, and, you know, it’s not on YouTube, so we have to make a movie.
And while we are at it, we might as well really play up the whole hero aspect
of it. So we end up telling our own ongoing history pretty much as we like it.
Here it is. Captain Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) has a
dangerous job. He knows it, too. He is an American in charge of a cargo ship
travelling off the coast of Somalia. And that’s not the best place to do business.
The issue is not with the weather, or with icebergs or reefs that are difficult
to navigate, or even with the local wildlife. The issue is with pirates.
And we are not exactly talking about Captain Hook and Smee
here. We are talking about men with AK-47s who were plucked from their
impoverished homes with the promise of a new life free of worry and want. These
pirates really have something on the line.
Captain Phillips is aware of the threat, but he pushes on.
Then the pirates come. Four pirates under the command of Abduwali Muse (Barkhad
Abdi) go after Captain Phillips’ ship, the MV
Maersk Alabama. At first Captain Phillips manages to outrun them. He thinks
that they have dodged a bullet; he thinks that all is well.
Then the pirates come again. This time they have a faster
boat and the equipment necessary to track down Captain Phillips’ ship and get
on board. Most of Phillips’ crew flees to the engine room, but Muse and his
cohort manage to capture Phillips. The plan is to hold Captain Phillips and his
ship ransom for millions of dollars.
It turns out to be not so easy. Captain Phillips and his
crew do various things to foil their pirate captors, such as cutting the power
to the engine. And meanwhile the plight of the sailors draws the attention of the
American government. A U.S. Navy destroyer is sent to intercept the
pirate-controlled ship with instructions to keep the ship from reaching shore
at all costs.
There is a lot of back-and-forth here. At points it looks
like Captain Phillips is doomed. At other points it seems obvious that the
pirates are going down. Of course, anyone who hasn’t had his or her head buried
in the sand for the past few years knows what’s going to happen. But still,
there is drama to be had here. Captain Phillips tries to escape at one point.
The pirates get testy. The Navy Seals come in. All very exciting.
Or at least the ending
of “Captain Phillips” is very exciting. The rest of the movie is just all
right—mostly a bunch of buildup. There is some interesting dialogue between
Captain Phillips and Muse, and of course Tom Hanks does a nice job throughout
the movie. But the whole thing is built for the ending. We want to know what it
looked like. We want to see how it all went down.
So we do. And it is interesting. And it is exciting. Perhaps
it is even worth the wait. However, there is nothing especially noteworthy
about “Captain Phillips” from a purely cinematic standpoint. There is nothing
much added here beyond the real-life story, except for the fact that Captain
Phillips is portrayed as an unqualified hero. If not for the fact that this
event—or at least something kind of like this event—really did occur, the movie
would be pretty pedestrian.
