4.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity, violence and substance abuse
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.11.13
Some stories are so astonishing,
they could only be true; you’d never believe them as plots in a novel.
The credibility-stretching 2009
saga of Captain Richard Phillips and the U.S. container ship Maersk Alabama is
just such a narrative, and it has become a taut, tension-laden drama in the capable
hands of documentarian-turned-filmmaker Paul Greengrass.
Thriller fans know Greengrass for
his superlative entries in the Jason Bourne series, most notably 2004’s The
Bourne Supremacy, by far the best of the bunch. But Greengrass also is the
writer/director who uncorked United 93 five short years after 9/11, constructing
a tense, deeply unsettling real-time depiction of what likely happened that
horrible day.
As with United 93, Greengrass’
new film is ripped from disturbing headlines, with screenwriter Billy Ray
(Shattered Glass, Breach) adapting the 2010 memoir A Captain’s Duty:Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS and Dangerous Days at Sea.
That book is written by Phillips,
with an assist from Stephan Talty ... which does, by definition, dilute some of
this film’s suspense. But that hardly matters; to a great degree, Phillips’
ordeal is well known by Americans who sat glued to their TV sets during five
days in April 2009. The key point here is that Greengrass depicts this saga
with a degree of verisimilitude, and an attention to detail, that border on
documentary realism.
Add superlative performances from
Tom Hanks and the actors playing his Somali captors, and the result is
can’t-miss cinema: You literally won’t take your eyes off the screen.
The film opens quietly, as
veteran merchant mariner Rich Phillips (Hanks) packs in anticipation of another
routine assignment; we get brief face-time with his wife, Andrea
(Catherine Keener), but then she’s never seen again.
(Which, just in passing, might be
a missed bet: Just as much drama unfolded in Vermont, as media crews
bird-dogged an agonized Andrea Phillips, while she followed these events ...
and I’d love to have seen the impressively talented Keener play that role. Then
again, Greengrass may have felt that her end of the saga would have diluted the
drama.)
Elsewhere, along the Somali
coast, gun-toting thugs in the employ of a local warlord descend on the
impoverished fishing village of Eyl and demand that its able-bodied inhabitants
take to the sea in order to hijack another foreign vessel, the goal —
maddeningly successful too many previous times — being to ransom it for
millions of dollars. The none-too-subtle point is that these dirt-poor
fishermen are caught between a rock and a hard place: mount the piracy
expedition, or be shot for refusing.
The faces blend in chaos; it will
be awhile before the key Somali players distinguish themselves ... although
Barkhad Abdi’s feral, cunning and unexpectedly intelligent gaze makes an
immediate impression.
Once underway on the heavily
laden Maersk Alabama, fully aware that they’ll be traveling through the pirate-infested
waters of the Somali basin, a cautious Phillips orders first mate Shane Murphy
(Michael Chermus) to put the men through safety drills. The captain/crew
dynamic is intriguing, in these early scenes; some of the men clearly respect
and smartly obey protocol and the chain of command, while others behave like
union-coddled jerks who resent not being able to stretch their coffee breaks.
Everybody snaps to attention,
however, when their ship’s radar detects the approach of two rapidly moving
blips.
What happens next can be divided
into three distinct chapters, each guaranteed to surprise viewers not
intimately acquainted with this saga. The assault on the Maersk Alabama is
riveting, as is Phillips’ crafty response to the crisis; he doesn’t miss a
trick, despite having very little with which to work. We quickly come to admire
the calm, calculating depth of Hanks’ performance; his portrayal of Phillips —
by all accounts, an accurate reflection of the actual mariner — is equal parts
unremarkable Everyman and quick-witted master of psychology.
We also can’t help being dismayed
by the fact that Phillips and his crew are unarmed, and without at least a few
trained soldiers; Somali piracy had been a well-established concern for several
years by 2009, with every ship’s crew unwittingly involved in a ghastly,
ocean-bound lottery. International shipping conglomerates clearly preferred to
play the numbers, and risk the odds, rather than spend the money to protect
individual ships. The mind doth boggle ... and although Ray’s script doesn’t
blatantly name-check this heinous mind-set, the implication is clear.
Actually, Ray’s entire script is
a masterpiece of nuanced subtlety, taking its cue from the way Phillips
described the pirates in his book (and I’m quoting a Booklist review here) as
“alternately conciliatory, vicious and simply not all there.” The latter
results from the fact that these pirates are in a constant state of amped-up
euphoria/anxiety, thanks to the amphetamine-like khat that they chew in lieu of
eating.
To say the least, it makes their
behavior unpredictable ... which Phillips recognizes all too quickly.
Eventually, the various pirates
sort themselves out and only four become involved in the action. They’re led by
Muse (the intense Abdi), who regards himself as a fellow captain and playfully
insists on calling Phillips “Irish.” Muse is all business: He expects Phillips
to call the shipping company, which will contact its insurance carrier, send
along a ransom, and allow ship and crew to move along. We sense that it has
gone down just this way, at least a few times, in the recent past ... but not
this time.
Thanks to Phillips’ cagy
machinations — the American captain, at all times, deeply concerned about his crew
— the situation quickly escalates out of Muse’s control. Meanwhile, imminent
loss of life is a very real possibility, thanks to the instability of Muse’s
three companions: the imposing Najee (Faysal Ahmed), with his hair-trigger
temper; the taciturn Elmi (Mahat M. Ali), unexpectedly handy as a mechanic; and
the youthful Bilal (Barkhad Abdirahman), wholly out of his depth.
All four — Abdi, Ahmed, Ali and
Abdirahman — are first-time actors, selected from among more than 1,000
candidates living in the States’ largest Somali-American community, in
Minneapolis, Minn. Their performances are authentic — and subtly complex — to
an astonishing degree. We simultaneously loathe and pity these four men, and in
a way almost admire their utterly insane courage, as they attempt to take
command of this huge ship — and, later, defy what seems like the entire U.S.
Navy — all by themselves.
But make no mistake: Greengrass
and Ray do not sugar-coat these pirates. They’re dangerously ruthless,
unexpectedly violent and prone to irrational, drug-hazed behavior; they
obviously wouldn’t lose any sleep after killing an American or three. (Well ...
Bilal might grieve a little.) But it would be wrong to call them evil; that
label more accurately applies to the much-feared Somali warlord Garaad, who
orders the assault.
The closest Ray’s script comes to
moralizing occurs during a brief exchange between Phillips and Muse, late in
game. “There must be more than fishing and kidnapping,” Phillips desperately
insists, subtly referencing the fact that Somali piracy grew in response to
illegal over-fishing and the dumping of toxic waste in Somali waters, which
deprived coastal villagers of their livelihoods.
“Maybe in America,” Muse replies,
the bitterness evident in his voice.
Max Martini is appropriately
crisp and commanding as the SEAL officer who enters the final round of what
eventually becomes an ocean-bound circus; Yul Vazquez is quietly efficient as
Frank Castellano, commander of the USS Bainbridge, the Navy destroyer initially
sent to negotiate a peaceful solution to the mounting crisis.
Just in passing — between this
film and last year’s Zero Dark Thirty — Navy SEALS never have looked so good.
I fully expect recruitment to take an upward bump.
As always, Greengrass surrounds
himself with equally accomplished technicians, starting with cinematographer
Barry Ackroyd — Oscar-nominated for The Hurt Locker — who works impressive
magic during difficult night shoots and the confined, narrow hallways of the
container ship. The result is solid cinema verité and intensely real.
Academy Award-winning editor
Christopher Rouse (for The Bourne Ultimatum) similarly tightens the screws,
deftly shifting between the varying perspectives of Phillips and Muse, each a
casualty of circumstances. Eventually, this cross-cutting grows to include
various Navy personnel, but the narrative landscape never gets cluttered, and
the tension never flags.
Hollywood often gets rapped,
justifiably, for the way factual events are distorted on the big screen.
Although Greengrass takes a few dramatic liberties here, he nonetheless
distills a significant bit of recent history into a socio-political document
that analyzes cultural disenfranchisement, in 134 minutes, far better than any
lengthy textbook is likely to do, in years to come.
On top of which, Greengrass also
delivers a rousing, suspenseful and thoroughly engaging drama that is certain
to garner numerous Oscar nominations, starting with Hanks.
When cynics insists that movies are
too commercial to be regarded as art, Captain Phillips is a great way to
prove them wrong.
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