Greengrass has created a perfectly good action thriller with
Captain Phillips, a based-on-fact flic that’s not unlike a Jason Bourne
movie. There’s suspense galore as the
crew hides in the mess locker and the engine room, as the pirates confront the
everyman Captain on the bridge, and as the hijackers, Phillips in tow, face off
against the United States Navy from their lifeboat. The performances by the
pirate actors add to the intensity with the desperation in the characters’ backgrounds
and their frustratingly limited language ability. Hanks, too, contributes to the suspense when
his even-keeled Captain finally starts to crack towards the end of the film.
And Greengrass’
signature wobbly camera gives a sense of immediacy to the action unfolding in
front of us. Whether bouncing in the pirates’ boat or glancing around the bridge frantically, the view through the camera communicates at least a bit of a sense of participating in the drama. The stakes also inexorably build from the small-scale, casual intimacy in the car as Andrea Phillips accompanies her husband to the airport, to the huge freighter that Phillips captains, and then to the image of the small lifeboat dwarfed by two warships and an aircraft carrier. Importance increasingly bears down on the characters visually as the suspense builds in the film.
But for all the directing chops and acting technique in
Captain Phillips, the movie doesn't quite make it past being a fleeting, cinematic
thrill. There is creaky exposition as
the mate shows a map and explains that the Maersk Alabama will be quite close
to the Somali coast; likewise, the SEAL leader has to articulate that he needs
three simultaneously clear shots to end the standoff. There is also an effort to elevate Captain
Phillips from being a typical action film to being one with something to say about the
First World/Third World struggle of today, but the mentions of the subject feel
tacked on to the film’s main interest in suspense. We see the desperate situation of Muse in his
Somali village, and we hear his protestations that he has no options but to
continue the hijacking. There’s the
concern that the First World Captain evinces for the Third World teenaged hijacker, who is approximate
the same age as his own First World son in Vermont.
But none of these elements manage to inform the overall effect of Captain
Phillips, perhaps because Greengrass is so good at action that such thematic
gestures fall short.
At the end of Captain Phillips, we’re more left more wanting
to take a deep breath of relief than think about the collisions of economic
disparity in today’s global economy. And
there’s certainly a place for such cinematic fun at the movies. It's just that, having seen what Greengrass can do, I
found myself wishing he had hit closer to his achievement in United 93 than his
work in The Green Zone.
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