Captain Phillips

2013 pirate movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Based on the true ordeal of the titular captain and his cargo ship overtaken by pirates.

This movie breaks my record for movies I have seen with the most people named Barkhad. There are two people named Barkhad in this one.

I have lost my ability to recognize Catherine Keener. I completely missed her in Bad Grandpa, and I didn't know she was playing (very briefly) Mrs. Captain Phillips in this. Of course, I was probably just distracted by the possibility that I might get to see Tom Hanks without a shirt later on in this movie. I didn't expect to be blown away by this movie, and a movie with this much shaky cam probably shouldn't ever be this good. But I was kind of blown away by how good this movie was, and the frenetic shaky cam fit the chaos of the story. The very best thing I can say about this movie is that I could have been told exactly how it ends and what happens to each and every character and still would have been captivated by the whole thing. And look at Tom Hanks, a guy who was nominated for Oscars for about everything he did just a few years ago and was ignored for work in this one for some reason. Of course, I've only seen Bruce Dern out of the five nominees and don't really know what I'm talking about here. All I know is that he was like a pirate who took over the ship of my heart in this movie. He's kind of just being Tom Hanksy for most of this, but when he's required to turn it on at the end, he really managed to pick me up and put me right in the shoes of his character. I even got choked up a little bit after Captain Phillips' rescue. The Barkhad who was nominated for an Academy Award is really good, too, especially as a first time actor. He looks the both the parts of a dangerous villain and a kid you almost feel sorry for, and that's a delicate balance for director Paul Greengrass and Abdi to hit. I again almost got choked up when he asked about his "friends" near the end of the movie. His character, it's pointed out in an addendum before the credits, somehow wound up in Terre Haute, Indiana, my birthplace and in the same place that Timothy McVeigh ate his last meal of two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream. I loved watching the little chess match Phillips and his crew played against the pirates, and the suspense and claustrophobia was made palpable during scenes on Phillips' ship and later on the goofy lifeboat. I'm not sure how much time was supposed to pass in this story, but I know it was multiple days. The way the story's told, it almost seems to be unfolding in real time. And it's told without politics, so objectively, and that makes it easy to appreciate, too. Of course, it does seem to push that Hollywood agenda of trying to make Navy SEALs look like tough guys. At least this does it a lot better than Zero Dark Thirty.

I'm still behind on my 2013 movies, but it's looking like a really good year in movies.