![]() It takes real skill to build genuine suspense when telling a story the ending of which everyone already knows, but Ray and Greengrass keep us on our toes, mainly by portraying the pirates as dangerous opponents, even when they’re surrounded by aircraft carriers.īut while Phillips comes off as resourceful, brave and dedicated, his captors more often than not resemble zombies - Greengrass often shoots them in a way that makes their eyes invisible, rendering them soulless. After several days in a lifeboat - an enclosed vessel, not like the ones you’ve seen in “Life of Pi” or Hitchcock’s “Lifeboat” - Phillips was eventually rescued by the Navy.Īlso read: 7 of Fall’s Burning Box-Office Questions: Will Horror Rule Again? Can Tom Hanks Get His Groove Back? Unable to access the ship’s cargo and fought to a standstill by the crew, the pirates instead took Phillips hostage, intending to transport him to Somalia to be ransomed by the insurance company. The captain and his crew managed to elude the raiders on their first pass, but the following day, the marauders boarded the ship. The story in and of itself is a gripping one: In the spring of 2009, Phillips (played here with unfussy humanity by Tom Hanks) was shepherding the cargo ship Maersk Alabama around the horn of Africa when it was set upon by Somali pirates. But while the filmmakers capture their hero through both words and deeds, they fail to paint as vivid a portrait of their villains.Īlso read: Tom Hanks Squares Off Against Somali Pirates in ‘Captain Phillips’ Trailer So while you may remember the news story from a few years ago, the one where Navy SEALs snipers took out three Somali pirates who were holding an American boat captain hostage, screenwriter Billy Ray (“Shattered Glass,” “The Hunger Games”) and director Paul Greengrass (“The Bourne Supremacy”) put us right in the thick of the action in “Captain Phillips.”īased on Richard Phillips and Stephen Talty’s memoir “A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs and Dangerous Days at Sea,” this movie evokes the terror of Phillips’ captivity with the kind of immersive storytelling for which Greengrass has become known. ![]() The best docu-dramas have a gift for taking a story we think we know and showing us the many layers that we don’t. ![]()
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