Movie Review: ‘Captain Phillips’ with Tom Hanks

By Kyle Osborne

Tom Hanks is the Jimmy Stewart of my generation—there isn’t a more affable star of his stature in Hollywood. So, it’s not easy (or probably very smart) to be the voice of dissent regarding  his latest film, “Captain Phillips,” which is getting mostly rave reviews by other critics across the country.

It’s not that this true story of a cargo ship- hijacked by Somali pirates near the Horn of Africa- is bad, but with near perfect films like “Gravity” and “Prisoners” currently in theaters, it doesn’t quite measure up.

Hanks plays the eponymous man at the helm, a hard-working New Englander just trying to get from point A to point B, and back home again. A great actor, Hanks has never been good at accents, and his “Pepperidge Farm” readings are distractingly cornball, the ol’ “Pahk The Cah At Hahvad Yahd” bit. Fortunately, the emotional notes are still there, as the Captain is taken hostage aboard a space-capsule-like life boat, and he and the lead hostage taker (engagingly played by Barkhad Abdi) realize that they are both stuck. Neither one can return home without doing his job.

Here’s the thing about stand-offs: they’re rather boring. That’s why they’re called “stand-offs.” I’m sure those who were involved in the actual case weren’t bored, but an audience needs the story to, at the very least, move forward. Director Paul Greengrass didn’t get the message that less can be so much more (again, not to compare apples and oranges, but “Gravity’s” tight, 90 minute run-time was a strength that other filmmakers should utilize). At two and Electronic Cigarette a quarter hours, it’s just too darn long. And slow in the second act.

So with Hanks, Abdi and two other pirates in a closed-in space, all we can do is wait for the cowboys to come in and circle the wagons—which they finally do, in the form of the Navy SEALS.  That final sequence actually stirs the story from its slumber and draws things to a rousing conclusion, but the wait was too long. The other pirates are about as bungling as the burglars in ‘Home Alone.’ I kept waiting for hanks to just grab a rifle and bonk them on the head and go home.

There is meant to be some kind of a social message,  wherein we’re supposed to empathize with the pirates who, supposedly, have no other way of supporting their families, other than terrorizing the working crews of cargo ships. I didn’t buy into that, although I was happy that, amidst Greengrass’s shaky camera shots and frenetic editing, Barkhad Abdi’s naturalistic performance brought humanity and dimension to his character. He wasn’t just a “bad guy.”

I wonder if our beloved Mr. Hanks is so familiar to us by now—such a comfy part of our movie-going past- that we’ll never be able to truly believe him as the characters he portrays? Just wondering.

“Captain Phillips” isn’t the best movie in theaters this weekend, but it’s the newest, and there are worst things than seeing a two-time Oscar winner on a Saturday night. But keep expectation’s toward the middle and don’t get an extra-large soda.

“Captain Phillips” gets 2 ½ Stars. It’s rated PG-13