I’d heard great things, and expected something remarkable from CAPTAIN PHILLIPS. It’s not remarkable, it’s just decent. It’s solidly constructed, well performed, and has Paul Greengrass’ usual aesthetic of a beleaguered former journalist.
The film is based on Captain Richard Phillips’ account of the hijack of his merchant vessel, his capture by Somali pirates and subsequent rescue by US Navy SEALs in 2009. The film depicts the ship setting sail on a routine voyage to Kenya, before a small band of pirates manage to board and hold Captain Phillips (Tom Hanks) and his crew hostage to demand a massive ransom. When the pirates, led by Muse (Barkhad Abdi) lose control of the ship’s technical systems, the crew attempt to retaliate, but the Pirates escape with Phillips as their captive, and a logistically challenging Navy rescue operation begins.
It’s the performances that marks the film out. Tom Hanks isn’t exactly out of his comfort zone playing an All-American Boy overcoming adversity, but he makes his mark as Phillips is slowly but surely broken, particularly when his ordeal is over and it all sinks in with heartbreaking impact. Unfortunately for Hanks, he has to share the screen with an outstanding newcomer, and the Hollywood star just can’t compete. Barkhad Abdi, playing Muse, is mesmerising with his haunting stare and the kind of intensity and cunning that can only come from real-life hardship.
The film’s biggest flaw is the script. It’s a case of tell, don’t show, and it’s mildly irritating that Greengrass and his screenwriter Billy Ray feel the need to talk down to their audience. Everything is explained in ludicrous detail completely straight-faced – how the pirate gangs operate, the US Navy’s kidnapping and hostage negotiation procedure, what will happen when the technical systems on the MV Maersk Alabama fail. There’s also been great effort put into trying to balance the different factions’ motivations, but somehow it just comes across as sitting on the fence. I know they’re trying to humanise everyone, but it’s too much, and unusually for a Greengrass film, it slows the story to a halt and actually removes tension from what should be a heart-pounding thriller. Tension never left the BOURNE films, so why does it flitter away when recounting real, traumatic events?
Greengrass doesn’t quite have the fetish for the American military as Michael Bay does, but he’s not far off. Just look at how his camera fauns over the SEALS tooling up before their mission! I guess having a drone’s-eye view on events is a hard-hitting, relevant thing to include, particularly for an ex-journalist, but it still smacks of glorifying military hardware more than questioning the need for its use. In the end, of course, the SEALS did rescue Phillips and kill/capture the pirates, but I’m not convinced we’re getting the warts-and-all story of the operation – it can’t have gone that smoothly!
Captain Phillips does look good, and is very Greengrass-y in its committed docu-style, and it’s really impressive just how much can still be achieved practically in a CGI-dominated world. This team of filmmakers didn’t make it easy for themselves, that’s for sure.
Captain Phillips is technically impressive, I can’t fault the performances of Hanks and Abdi as the two opposing captains, and the finale has undeniable raw emotional clout, but the rest of the film is uninspiring. The screenplay never gives the plot room to breathe, nor does it allow the audience to unearth tension and drama by themselves, and overall it’s just too preoccupied with explaining everything in tedious detail. The script annoyingly veers from lifeless human rights debate to extremes of volume – when the characters aren’t defending/chastising America, they’re either bellowing or whispering to show how stressful their situation is. There’s never any middle ground, no subtlety. Mercifully, Barkhad Abdi can say so much with a subtle change of expression, so he clearly wasn’t limited by the weaknesses of the words on the page. I’ll repeat that Captain Phillips isn’t bad, not by any means. It’s competent, with hints of greatness, but what it certainly isn’t – fatally for a thriller – is thrilling. SSP
SSP Thinks Film 
“It’s hard for winners to do comedy…We attack the winners” (RIP Harold Ramis)
The world lost a comedy icon yesterday as Harold Ramis passed away aged 69 after a prolonged illness. Ramis was rightly loved and admired by his fans and fellows as a gifted comedy writer, director and performer, and leaves behind an impressively varied catalogue of chortle-inducing work spanning four decades.
A Marx Brothers fan from an early age, Ramis tried his hand at comedy plays in college before writing jokes for Playboy, then making the successful transition to TV and film along with fellow wild-card funnymen John Belushi, Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd.
Ramis, as if anyone needs to be reminded, co-wrote anarchic frat comedy ANIMAL HOUSE and the ever-popular GHOSTBUSTERS and its sequel (as well as memorably self-casting himself as the titular supernatural pest control team’s straight man Egon Spengler) before taking the reigns on his own projects, often collaborating with close friend Bill Murray.
His finest hour came with the release of GROUNDHOG DAY, which remains one of the best time travel (or time loop) films ever made, discussing big philosophical concepts with wit, warmth and just a touch of cynicism (all expressed through Murray’s trademark deadpan performance style). The end product tellingly shows the Ramis/Murray professional-affectionate partnership at its strongest, despite the fact that disagreements over the story and its meaning ruined their friendship – it’s a real testament to their professionalism that they managed to produce the best film possible, even if their working relationship was tarnished by it.
Ramis again stepped behind the camera to direct several of the more memorable episodes of THE OFFICE, and was reportedly open to the long-gestating third Ghostbusters movie (naturally conditional on his fellow castmates’ involvement) and in that regard, I sincerely hope his tragic death finally puts the project to rest. Aykroyd was reluctant to launch into production when Murray expressed disdain , so I doubt he’d want to press on now one of the Ghostbusters, and one of his close friends, has died.
It’s common practice to mourn for what might have been when a real talent in the film world passes away, but surely we should instead be thankful for what was. Thankyou, Harold Ramis, for Animal House, for Ghostbusters and especially for Groundhog Day. Not so grateful for BEDAZZLED, but you can’t win ’em all… SSP