Captain Phillips Movie Review

Captain Phillips SEAsed the Day

The U.S. cargo ship Maersk Alabama, captained by Richard Phillips and played by Tom Hanks, is on a risky route around the coast of Africa to deliver supplies to countries in Africa. Already aware of the pirate ridden seas, Captain Phillips and First Officer Shane Murphy (Michael Chernus) run preventative safety drills only to discover alleged pirate boats on their radar. After the clever tactics of Captain Phillips, one of the boats tailing the ship decides to turn back. The other boat is an armed group of Somali pirates. They later manage to hijack the cargo ship and Captain Phillips heroically sends the ships crew to hide out while he remains in the control room.

Somali pirates, Abduwali Muse (Barkhad Abdi), Walid Elmi (Mahat M. Ali), Nour Najee (Faysal Ahmed), and Adan Bilal (Barkhad Abdirahman) Walid Elmi (Mahat M. Ali) find Captain Phillips and after demanding a large ransom, also want to search the ship due to the absence of the crew. While searching with Phillips as their prisoner, the ship crew captures Abduwali Muse and demands Captain Phillips in exchange for him. However things take a (s)tern for the worst, and in an aggressive negotiation with the crew the Somali pirates end up taking the ransom money and not releasing Captain Phillips. They all board an emergency lifeboat and head back towards Somalia. Now the ship's crew is left to contact the U.S. forces for help. 

The character driven crew, specifically First Officer Shane Murphy, put you on the edge of your seat with their persistent journey to rescue Captain Phillips. In my opinion, they brought the most emotion to the film.
It can also be seen as the theme of the story. The determined team's unflagging venture was very moving and added a hopeful affect to the intense climax of the movie.
The ideal audience demographic for 'Captain Phillips' is anyone 13 and up who can handle thrilling story lines and violence. It is a pretty graphic movie with some light profanity so PG13+ is a fair rating.

I give this movie a 4 out of 5 stars. The movie progressed fairly low at the beginning, but once the plot became clear I couldn't look away. It was intriguing and kind of phycological the way things were handled. The certain details that the film exposed made you think about the events from every perspective. I highly recommend this film to anyone looking for a suspenseful film for movie night.


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