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| Copyright: Columbia Pictures |
In the
entrance sequence of Captain Phillips, we witness a conversation between a wife
and a husband. The husband is a maritime captain, and his wife is escorting him
to an airport, from where he will set out to his next voyage. During their
drive, they talk about how the world has changed and who their children will
have a rough time in their adulthood.
For me, this
was an awful way to open the film. The conversation tells us nothing about
Phillips, or his wife. They sound as if they are practicing the lines from the
beginning of an SNL sketch, right before one of them declares that she or he
wants to join the circus or something ludicrous like that. There is no emotion
that rings true, except perhaps a hint of subdued boredom from a decades long
marriage. Tom Hanks, who plays Phillips, presents the same thing in this role –
something seen and done many times by him, combined with an ever-present
feeling of tiredness. The real is described by some of his crew as reckless,
but here all of that was condensed into unintended bravery. Because the movie
didn’t want to get political, I guess.I wondered
to myself in that moment: if Paul Greengras, the director of this film had so
much trouble presenting a regular middle-aged man from the US, how on Earth
will he depict the Somali pirates?
The answer
to that question is simple – he didn’t. Somalis that try to hijack the ship
captained by Phillips are total stranger. Apart from their habit of chewing
khat and vague references to their long vanished fishing lifestyle, the film
steers clear of their motives or basic personalities. To be honest, they aren’t
vilified, but in glances, we see them as ruthless, then childish, then scared,
then crazy or indifferent. This may seem like a variety of human traits, but it
actually manages to present an extremely hazy picture. I don’t feel like it was
left to the viewer to decide who they actually are, but more likely, it had
been deemed as unimportant. The pirates are just there, like a bad storm on the
open sea.
On the other
side of the action, there is the crew and their captain, supported by the
American and British navies, equipped with enough firepower to sink the Spanish
armada. Here, Greengras shows his military command and control fetish, and he
dazzles the audience with the images of operating rooms, warship bridges and
other battle stations. Navy people call other navy people, orders are given and
someone is always counting down to something. This is where he obviously feels
like home, and it’s not surprising after so many years in the Born films.
The problem
is that even here I felt no suspense and no thrills. This film is a
live-action, big budget documentary with Tom Hanks in the main role. After it,
unlike after watching A Hijacking which left me intrigued and concerned, I felt
mildly amused. Like its portrait of Somali pirates, Captain Phillips presents
to its audience an emotional blank.
