"Captiane Phillips" DVD review

[madmac]

This is a good, entertaining, and engaging film if you can get past some of the problems with it. Firstly (and this is a big one), I cannot get past the fact that they are knowingly going into Somali, pirate infested waters off the coast of Africa and nobody.....not one person, has a gun on board. Not even a single shot handgun!!??........NADA!!......Nothing....zero!!. It stands to reason to me that a ship carrying millions of dollars worth of goods, knowing that pirates are a reality in these waters (and being forewarned!), would not have a few individuals....crew or hired security that could defend the ship against these attacks. If that were a reality and being high above the water, these goons would never have had a chance to board and take control of the ship. Sounds logical no??!!.

If you can move past that fact, the rest of the film is pretty good. There are other dumb aspects of the film, but by this point, you tend to ignore them. Tom Hanks does a great job as the captain (Although at times he's annoying!) but the main character and the one that steals the show is the head of the Pirate team known as "The Muse" (Barkhad Abdi). An inexperienced, yet confident Pirate who unfortunately doesn't really know what he's doing.....but tries to make it 'look' like he does.

Tensions rise to a dramatic climax to this engaging film, despite it's 'dumb' moments.

7/10 stars for an entertaining movie!

[Kal Rubinson]

So, your problem with the film is that it is based on the facts of the actual events? :roll:

[George Bellefontaine]

I rented this for tonight. Looking forward to it.

[madmac]

So, your problem with the film is that it is based on the facts of the actual events? :roll:

This film is 'based' on an event and/or events that apprently happened. Movie's of course are rarely totally accurate so I don't know how accurate this film is to the real events. All I'm doing is giving my opinion of what I liked and did not like about the film.......Not the real events or how they might have really happened. Obviously if the crew had automatic weapons aboard and knew how to shoot them.....well then......we wouldn't have a movie would we!!??.

[madmac]

I rented this for tonight. Looking forward to it.

I'm looking forward to your opinion George!

[Chris D]

Have heard good things about this movie. I'll be renting it for sure, sooner or later.

Dan, I understand what you're saying about not understanding why they didn't have guns. If it had been me, I wouldn't have gone there without guns or other methods of defense. But simple reality is that so many people of the world don't think anything bad will ever happen to them, their loved ones, their country, etc... and thus, they think guns and similar things are totally unnecessary.

[George Bellefontaine]

I'm looking forward to your opinion George!

I really liked the film, Dan.
Barkhad was certainly convincing in his role as the pirate leader, but I'm not sure I would agree that his performance was Oscar worthy. Hanks was great as Captain Phillips and his final scenes in the film were so convincing that I was moved emotionally.

[wkhanna]

International maritime laws discourage the carrying of firearms.

Many ports will not allow vessels with arms to dock, or if they do, they must relinquish their arms to quarantine.
What purpose is served by making every crew a potential band of armed pirates?

Some interesting reading for those who wish...

Link

Link

The commercial shipping lanes past the coast of Somalia are some of the busiest in the world.
Shipping lines are businesses, and like most businesses they are run by accountants.
The calculated costs of diverting traffic or arming each and every vessel with its own highly trained militia vs the cost of insurance & payment of ransom are the only factors at play for those whose primary motive is profit. Such risk is simply one factor in the equation used to calculate the cost of doing business. Think of it as overhead.

It was The Wife who brought this home, otherwise I would not have seen it of my own accord. It almost had the feeling of a documentary more than a fictional drama based on an actual occurrence. I do not know exactly how accurate history was portrayed, nor do give a damn. This was meant to be a Hollywood film made to make a profit by presenting entertainment an audience would pay for. For that part it was moderately successful. From my perspective, it was Tom Hanks & Barkhad that made it captivating even to me. It is not my personal pick for the type of movie I prefer. After having watched it, I do not in any way feel cheated. It was well acted, well executed & produced……it just is not my flavor of entertainment.

[madmac]

I really liked the film, Dan.
Barkhad was certainly convincing in his role as the pirate leader, but I'm not sure I would agree that his performance was Oscar worthy. Hanks was great as Captain Phillips and his final scenes in the film were so convincing that I was moved emotionally.

Yes George.....The ending, and Hanks performance at the end moved me too.

[Chris D]

Wow! Just watched this on PPV. What a great film! I honestly don't think I could find anything wrong with the film. Great acting. Great script. Good music, photography, characters, pacing, etc. Very good piece of work. I didn't even feel the film had any particular agenda. Some may argue that it was intended to glorify the US Navy by the action scenes at the end, but I never felt like the events portrayed exceeded what really happened, or would happen again, if a similar situation were to reoccur in the future.

So instead of picking apart the movie as a work, I'll ruminate on the real story. Like most other stories based on real events, I have to wonder how true it really is. From what I've read, it's generally pretty close. The movie is based on a book by Phillips, so naturally there's a possibility he made himself look more like a hero, and composed under pressure, than he really was. Was he really so "ship-shape" as portrayed, in crossing all the "T's" before leaving port? So composed, thoughtful, and in command of the situation when hijacked? Who knows. I don't know if one way or another it would really detract from the story that much. Even though the film is (correctly) titled "Captain Phillips", it's not a movie to make him out to be a hero. It's a story about what happened to him, since the vessel hijacking quickly turned into a one-man hostage scenario. And the film shows him making lots of mistakes. One of the film's greatest strengths is the solid ending, showing Phillips fall apart in shock, as a human, and what is most likely the start of PTSD. There's also discussion out there of a pending lawsuit involving Captain Phillips and Maersk, that he/they ignored repeated warnings to stay much further off the Somali coast during transit. That instead of being a hero, Captain Phillips' negligence was actually the reason the whole situation was able to happen. This is not something I'm able to judge.

Lots made me angry, starting with the pirates themselves. Like most criminals, they display an incomprehensible level of arrogance and entitlement, that they DESERVE what belongs to others, and they can act as aggressive and powerful as they want to get it. Yet they are shocked when anyone resists, and still live in a deluded state of entitlement. Even at the end, as it is obvious the game is over and the pirates are headed for destruction, Muse talks about how he will be rich and go to America. I have no doubt that some types of people will feel bad for the pirates, and claim that it is unfair that the authorities intervened against these "sympathetic" people, and that three of them died, with Muse going to jail for decades. Oh, how sad for them!

But I'm also appalled that this crew and ship (and so many others) were given absolutely no means of defending themselves from pirates or any other attackers, beyond uncontrolled water fountains. Given no training or tactics beyond speeding up, and making turns as a boat approaches. To make it so incredibly easy, (even making the assumption that a gate padlock would keep attackers out from control areas of the ship) that four untrained, undisciplined, unorganized, poorly equipped, 18 year-old PUNKS of nominal intelligence could easily overwhelm and seize an entire 17,000 ton shipping vessel two football fields long, in the matter of maybe 10 minutes. That's negligent of any number of describable levels.

I'm sure there were a bunch of technical inaccuracies about naval operations in the film, but I couldn't spot any. As a pilot, the only one I saw was an aviation issue, when the Navy Seals were shown getting on a C-130 in Virginia. If you need to get halfway around the world, you DON'T do it in a C-130, which would have taken maybe 3-4 full DAYS. You get on a fast jet, and then trans-load to a C-130 for the drop if you have to right at the end, probably from Egypt or coalition bases in Djibouti. Totally unimportant to the movie, though.

All in all, a great movie that I really enjoyed. As mentioned above, the ending of the movie really moved me, especially Hanks' performance. :45: out of :5:

[George Bellefontaine]

Good stuff, Chris.