Captain Phillips 2013
I was glad to be able to get a copy of this movie on Blu-ray. It had been out the past couple of times I checked. This is a good movie about the true story of the American captain of a ship that is pirated off the coast of Somalia. We get a little bit of insight into the Somali pirates that implies they aren’t always doing this because they want to, but because they have to in order to pay tribute to local crime bosses. The situation itself always seemed a little absurd to me with ragtag pirates able to take ocean-going ships with almost no struggle and no chance of rescue except by paying ransoms to the pirates. It was crazy that insurance and shipping companies were paying millions in ransoms rather than investing in security for their ships, changing behaviors like traveling in convoys, or getting military escorts. Maybe it isn’t that simple . . .
We get a brief background on Captain Phillips as well as he leaves his wife and children in the US to meet his ship in the Middle East before setting out past Somalia to deliver food aid to Africa. The problem is that this is a pretty well-known story. Paul Greengrass is an obvious choice for this kind of movie, having also directed the excellent United 93, but that movie was maybe a little more complicated about something that was a much bigger story (though not entirely as well known). The action is pretty straightforward, albeit with a few twists and turns and some clever moves by Captain Phillips that make him much more than just a victim. And the pirates aren’t just carboard bad guys, but simple bandits having both a great day (in capturing a very large ship) and a really bad day (as they blow it).
As a re-enactment of a real-life event, this is a pretty good movie, but as entertainment, I felt like it fell a little flat. It isn’t always easy to see what is going on with the shaky cam and the clipped lines, but you still aren’t missing anything that you can’t fill in. I’ll give this a B+.
Written: 12 Feb 2014
Owned on: Digital