Directed by Paul Greengrass
Starring Tom Hanks and Barkhad Abdi

Grade: A

There are two men and each have a plan. One of them needs to board a ship, take the crew hostage and demand ransom money, while the other needs to stop that from happening. Both succeed to a degree and both fail spectacularly. Captain Phillips is about the building desperation of best laid plans gone awry. Many of you will remember this story from the news a few years ago and bring expectations because of it, especially since we kind of already know how it ends, but director Paul Greengrass keeps the tension level up so high, while giving us plenty of moments of real humanity, to get around whatever preconceived expectations we bring with us.

Philips is played by Tom Hanks, who is at his best, at least in dramatic roles, when he’s playing an everyman. This is his best acting work in years. He is not an action hero, and don’t expect him to be here, but he is a seasoned ship captain who understands the very real risk of piracy, even when his men don’t. Phillips is a bit of a hard-ass boss, with no patience for laziness or extending breaks longer than the allotted time. He plays by the book at all costs, and when pirates led by Muse (Barkhad Abdi) raid his ship, the book works. He defeats the pirates on the first run, and very nearly defeats them on the second. But Phillips’ plan can’t work forever. The moment is perfectly executed when Muse leaps from his small boat and latches onto the ladder connecting to the ship, the soundtrack cuts and we see, for the first time, Phillips understands the trouble they’re in.
Captain Phillips wisely stays mostly apolitical. It’s not interested in good guys and bad guys, and Abdi shines in his role as a young man accepting of his life and his obligations, but carrying a certain sadness. He’s smarter than all of his associates, meaning he understands the folly of their actions, not just from a moral standpoint, but a practical one. He knows that even if he brings back millions of dollars, he and his friends will only see the smallest percentage of that. “I have bosses,” he tells Phillips, and that one line tells us everything we need to know. Muse’s plan goes wrong and he shows a knack for improvising his way through situations, but the world is far bigger and more powerful than he is, and he knows it, but his circumstances will not let him back down.

This film, despite all action scenes and tension building, is really just about these two men. They both understand that things are going to go poorly for Muse and his friends, the only wild card is what happens to Phillips in the process. Hanks brings a world weariness and a certain naiveté to the title role. He’s a man who understands the threat of piracy, and instinctively knows what to do in the grim situations, but he is also completely unprepared to deal with the fact that, even in the face of hopeless odds, these pirates won’t back down. The consequences of these young men simply giving up and running back home with their tail between their legs is far more dire than whatever the American military can give them. In the last scene in the movie, a beautifully acted one, Hanks is reduced to bumbling tears and the state of a child as his first world upbringing has failed to prepare him for the violence and trauma he just experienced.

There is no real subtext here, just story. Greengrass can’t resist making a couple statements, like the fact that giant western commercial fishing boats catch all the fish from the ocean, taking away fisherman’s livelihoods, and then being surprised when they turn to piracy. But mostly, it’s just these two men, decent people trying to ride the wave as best they can, and their plans and their desperation in the face of failure.