Captain Phillips

Captain Phillips is a drama thriller starring Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi and directed by Paul Greengrass.

The film is based on a true story about Captain Richard Phillips who was taken hostage by Somali Pirates. Phillips wrote a book detailing his ordeal and the film is based on that book.

Now on to the movie itself, which starts off departing from the Port of Salalah, and sails through the Gulf of Eden in order to get to Mombasa. However, once they near the Horn of Africa, the ship is attacked by pirates, which is eventually boarded. I’ll stop here so as not to give too much away.

The acting in this film is extremely powerful, especially from the movie’s two lead actors, Tom Hanks and Barkhad Abdi. The tone in the film is perfectly paced, although the film does slightly drag out a bit in the first 20 minutes of the third act. However, the movie is able to capture the tension beautifully, you feel as if you are able to identify with the plight of Captain Phillips, all huddled on a small lifeboat with four armed pirates surrounding him. And you begin asking yourself, what would you do in that situation?

Again a round of applause must be given to Barkhad Abdi, who is a native Somali. Although he has been living in the States for some time, his accent is perfect and of course his native language. He isn’t the only one though as his co actors, all native Somalis now living in the States give incredibly convincing performances which gives you a glimpse of the dangers that ships go through in those waters.

The film also tries to pull on your moral heartstrings by touching on the reasons these pirates do what they do, which of course explores themes of survival and how far would you go to support yourself. However, the film doesn’t justify nor condone the pirating actions, but just leaves the idea there as a little afterthought.

So with that in mind, Captain Phillips gets an anchored 10 out of 10.

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