Captain Phillips (2013)

Captain Phillips (PG-13) - Review

"I am the Captain, now."

Tom Hanks stars as the Captain whose cargo vessel is attacked by Somali pirates.  Presented as Historical fiction, this formally dramatic CNN-bait is padded out to feature length proportions and the stretch marks are livid.  It starts off strong, contrasting Captain Phillips' work life and worries of competition with that of the Somalian captain's desperate life on the edge, played authentically by Barkhad Abdi.  But after the strong start the film bogs down in iffy historical details and heroification that is totally white-washed for an American audience.   To the down playing of the Seal Teams incredible shooting to the 3 dead Somalis who never got a chance to be characterized as anything but cliches.  Actual political ramifications are avoided completely, as are the real-life crew's claims of events; the mishandling of security by the titular Captain and his supposed non-heroics.  Cinematography, pace and production design all falter to make an impression beyond "Look at Captain Phillips problems!", when audeinces may be left scratching their heads why so much fuss is made over the man.

And what is the film trying to say anyway?  It fails to tread the line between compassion for the plight of the 3rd world and the caustic exploitation and indifference to their deaths by the mainstream. The point?  All signs seem to point to "At least the successful, Caucasian American Citizen survived," which as far as movie plots go its about as tone-deaf as Oscar nominees get.

4.5 Dead Kennedys so sarcastically put it "All systems GO to Kill the Poor Tonight!" out of 10 (BAD)