But the foursome-headed by skeletal Muse (Barkhad Abdi), the brains of the operation-grows impatient. As Phillips sends the crew to hide out in the engine room, he assumes the role of a host of sorts, trying to distract his unwanted guests with offers of water and food while showing them around. The pirates board the ship with surprising ease, although their efforts put their own boat out of service. The focus, of course, is on the hijacking. Many critics have derided this segment as clunky and forced, but I believe Greengrass wanted to introduce the captain as an average family man, not some gung-ho wannabe hero, so his cool-headed reactions later on would seem all the more remarkable besides, other than a medical worker who shows up late in the story, Keener is the only woman with any impact onscreen. The basis of the script-preparing for his journey and being driven to the airport by his wife (a cameo by Catherine Keener, who seems to be everyone’s past or current wife in movies these days). There is a prologue that shows Richard Phillips-whose memoir served as Although the ship’s occupants are shown undergoing an emergency drill, no trained military are involved until the situation becomes dire enough to require a visit from Navy SEALs. No joking around with the crew or idle chitchat: this is a job. The actor submerges his natural exuberance to assume the role of a terse and weary New England-based merchant mariner who oversees a huge floating warehouse with reserved efficiency. This is a different Hanks than the affable guy-next-door that we have come to expect. Tom Hanks is one of those rare movie stars that we willingly follow into almost any unpleasant situation-even in those less-than-great thrillers based on The Da Vinci Code books-knowing that his very presence onscreen will get us through any perils that confront us in the dark. Who else would we want to observe saving a space craft from disaster in " Apollo 13," enduring the horrors of D-Day in " Saving Private Ryan" and surviving a plane crash on a deserted island in " Cast Away"? But, in this case, the filmmaker thankfully reached out to an actor who almost always provides a welcome security blanket for moviegoers. But as Greengrass has demonstrated in such past films as 2002’s " Bloody Sunday" (about the 1972 shooting of unarmed demonstrators in Northern Ireland) and 2006’s "Flight 93" (which re-enacted the events on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11), he is stronger with the doc part of his cinematic equation than the interaction between characters.Įmploying a little-known cast does increase verisimilitude. What unfolds in the next two hours is gripping enough that more than a few theater armrests will probably require upholstery repair. After that, it's full steam ahead and no turning back. Lean-and-hungry members of the world’s under-class-a ragtag, brazenly opportunistic band of young Somali men- stage their attack as if pulling off a smash-and-grab at a jewelry store. The action takes off within the first 20 minutes.
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