Movie Review: "Captain Phillips"

"Captain Phillips": A.  The timing for Momma Cuan and I to attend Captain Phillips last Friday afternoon probably could have been better.  We were still worn out from having attended the tension-packed Fool For Love at the Jungle Theater the night before.  The Tom Hanks high seas piracy drama was likewise relentless with its depiction of a commercial cargo ship, the Maersk Alabama, sailing under a US flag on its way from Oman to Kenya, churning through the Indian Ocean.  Although the waters off the coast of eastern Africa, particularly near Somalia, are known to be infested with pirates, the best defense the Alabama could muster, as two motor boats carrying armed baddies approached, was a high power water spray from hoses aimed outward on each side of the ship.  This amounted to a mere inconvenience, as the young pirates had little problem attaching their portable ladder to the Alabama's deck railing and climbing aboard.

Before we get too far into the action, director Paul Greengrass provides us viewers with some background on the central characters.  We might expect extensive background concerning Phillips (Hanks), if for no other reason than he is the title character.  But what makes this movie admirable, and sets it apart from your ordinary good vs. evil motion picture, is the time spent developing Muse (Minneapolitan Barkhad Abdi), the skinny baby-faced leader of the pirates.  Muse and his cronies are very young adults -- and in one case, a teenager -- who live a tough existence in their homeland, Somalia.  Their day job is fishing, but they are under the thumb of the local warlord, who pressures them into committing crimes on the high seas. Greengrass' objective does not appear to be an attempt to gain sympathy for the young men, but a better understanding of how the world should work from their perspective.

 

Phillips is a veteran naval career man, but unlike the chief officer on a warship, most of his crew consists of civilians who cannot be expected to deal with the crisis in the same manner military enlisted men would.  One of the best, albeit short, scenes in the movie occurs several minutes before the motor boats catch up to the Alabama.  Phillips gives instructions to his men on the tactics they will employ should there be a boarding by the pirates.  The crew members protest, reminding Phillips that they did not sign on to fight; they are civil sailors (not Navy seamen) who are not interested in engaging, or paid to engage, in hand-to-hand combat with armed pirates.  Phillips' retort is that every man knew when he signed on that the charted course was going to take them through seas known to be fertile ground for pirates.  The fact that they are soon to be confronted should not take them by surprise.

 

The cargo carried on the Alabama, comprised of various goods and materials, is not of much interest to the pirates.  Neither is the thirty thousand US dollars in cash which Phillips readily offers them from the Alabama's safe if they'll just go away.  The greenbacks are chump change for the Somalians.  They intend to commandeer the ship, bring it to a Somalian port, and hold the ship and the crew for ransom from Maersk's insurance company.  The asking price will be in the high seven figures, at least.

 

Any notion by Phillips or the the movie viewers that Muse is a chump who will be easy to outmaneuver or out-negotiate is quickly dispelled.  He is shrewd and ruthless.  That point is covered both in flashbacks and in his present day, on-board actions.  For much of the time Muse is actually likable.  Once Phillips tells him he is an Irish Catholic, Muse immediately bestows the nickname "Irish" on the captain.  Later in the story, when Phillips and Muse are having a "heart-to heart" conversation, Phillips opines that there must be other things Muse could do with his life besides fishing and risking his life obeying piracy orders from the warlord. Muse's reply is poignant: "Maybe in the US, Irish, but not in Somalia." 

 

Another memorable conversation occurs when Muse informs Phillips that their last haul netted them six million dollars in ransom money.  Phillips then asks, if that's the case, where did that six million go?  Isn't that enough to set you up for life?  Why are you still a pirate?  What are you doing here?  Muse does not have an answer for that, but Phillips' point is well made.

 

As smart and (at least in their own eyes) brave as the Somalians might be, there is one stumbling block they did not count on: the US Navy.  The pirates are repeatedly cautioned, "You can't win this!"  Do they?  The price of a theater ticket will enable you to find out.

 

I came away with one dominating thought.  Since the world knows that pirates pose a real and significant threat off the east coast of Africa, wouldn't it be smarter and more cost-efficient to have at least a small military escort accompany the cargo ships, rather than waiting for a crisis and then deploying naval troops to deal with the emergency?