The movie of 2013 that I think I found to be most disappointing was Captain Phillips. This was by no means a bad movie, but I approached this movie with the belief that this was going to be THE movie of the year. It was anything but the movie of the year. It wasn’t even a top 10 movie of the year. After all, is said and done, it most likely won’t even be a top 20 movie of the year for me. I’m not entirely certain what the main reasons were that I didn’t like it. I will rattle off a couple during this review, but I think that, ultimately, it came down to not meeting my extraordinarily high initial expectations.

Captain Phillips tells the true story of the 2009 hijacking of the U.S. Container ship Maersk Alabama by a group of four pirates from Somalia. This event was all over the news, and the United States put more into protecting its fleets after this incident. As is evident from the trailer, the four pirates gain access to the freighter and ultimately take control of the ship. Now my first criticism has nothing to do with the movie itself but rather the story it is based upon. I don’t understand how this could have happened. There were warnings worldwide that a hostile takeover like this was possible. Yet we had this massive container ship with a crew of 20 people on it that just four Somali pirates boarded. How was it that this ship was put in harm’s way? How was it that the crew was unarmed? While it is true that the Somali pirates were all armed, they were on a tiny little speedboat. There is no way they should have ever been able to access the ship. If nothing else, I felt like we should have been able to have kept them at bay until they ran out of fuel. So the fact that this story happened is a little unbelievable. Even though the ship was only 240 nautical miles from the coast of Somalia (instead of the advised 600 miles), it should have been safe from a takeover. With all of that said, the pirates did gain access to the ship, and this story did happen.

Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump, Philadelphia) is believable as Richard Phillips, the brave captain and reluctant hero who sacrificed his life for the safety of his crew. Hanks seemed to be already winning best actor awards for his performance before this movie was even released. His performance was very good, but not great. This is the type of movie that I have been waiting for Hanks to return to for the last decade. With apologies to all of the Toy Story fans out there, it’s been eleven years since there’s been a must-see Hanks film (2002 must-see Road to Perdition). Just seeing him back in this genre was enough to get me excited. So, this movie wasn’t a total loss for me. While I wish it was better, I think my disappointment resulted from my unrealistic expectations more than anything else. Tom Hanks is one of my ten favorite actors and one of the best of all time, but this was not one of the five best performances of the year. I felt a little bit of justice was served when he was not nominated for an Academy Award. I felt he deserved more than Robert Redford (All Is Lost), who was not nominated but was mentioned. I also feel like he was more deserving than Christian Bale (American Hustle), who is also one of my ten favorite actors. Joaquin Phoenix (Her) was the actor who got the biggest shaft at nomination time.

The performance of Barkhad Abdi, who plays the role of Muse, the lead pirate, was not lost in the movie. The 28-year-old first-time actor shined as the troubled captor who isn’t risking his life for fame and fortune or his hate for Americans but purely as a way to survive. The heated and more subdued exchanges between Hanks and Abdi are awesome. Hanks brought out the best in the rookie, but Abdi did the same for the grizzled cinema veteran. Abdi was very deserving of his Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination. If not for Jered Leto (Dallas Buyer’s Club) or Michael Fassbender (12 Years A Slave), he might have been able to win the top honor. As a first-time actor, though, it would be just as awesome to be nominated as it would be to win. Maybe not? In any case, Abdi should have a nice little acting career ahead of him now.

Plot 8/10
Character Development 7.5/10
Character Chemistry 8/10
Acting 9/10
Screenplay 8/10
Directing  8.5/10
Cinematography 10/10
Sound 10/10
Hook and Reel 9.5/10
Universal Relevance 9.5/10
88%

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