Captain Phillips (2013) – Encore Review

This a Covid-19 2020 minireview!

“You said this was just business. Is this business? Is this how you do business?” – Captain Richard Phillips

Number of Times Seen – Twice (4 Dec 2013 and 8 Oct 2020)

Link to original review – Here

Brief Synopsis – Based on the true story of how a Cargo ship captain dealt with Somalian Pirates who wished to take over his ship.

Bottom Line – Very good story that feels a bit too stretched out here. Tom Hanks is great as usual and helps make things more thrilling and enjoyable to watch. The supporting characters all feel too superficial and they never try and develop any of them on a deeper level. Even Barkhad Abdi, who was nominated for an Oscar for his role as the lead pirate isn’t menacing enough and in some cases is pitied on too much. The story has a few too many lulls along the way, but we still get a clear idea of what happened during this ordeal and how the characters all did their best with the situations that they encountered. The film had much too much hype around it which makes one expect something even more powerful than they deliver. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – During an interview on NPR’s “Fresh Air”, Tom Hanks said the first time he met the actors playing the Somali pirates was when they started filming the pirates taking over the bridge. Paul Greengrass mentioned he did this intentionally to build up tension between the actors on board the ship and the actors playing the Somali pirates. (From IMDB)

Rating – Globe Worthy (7/10) (slight downgrade from original review)