Film Review | Captain Phillips

There is no doubt that the Malta-filmed real-life piracy thriller Captain Phillips is a thrilling ride. But what makes Paul Greengrass's film truly exceptional is that it does so much more, without distracting from the urgent drama at its surface.

Late into Paul Greengrass's seabound thriller, Captain Phillips, the eponymous captain - played by Tom Hanks and taken hostage by Somali pirates - makes a pertinent statement to his captors.

There has to be something else for you, he asks the Somali pirate leader, the dangerously mercurial Muse (Barkhad Abdi). There has to be something other than fishing or piracy...

"Maybe in America," is Muse's stark reply.

 For all its championing of the main protagonist's heroism, 'Captain Phillips' - partly filmed in Maltese waters - is more than anything an indictment of the systems that let us down, be they in Somalia or Stateside.

But make no mistake: Greengrass still succeeds in crafting a nail-bitingly intense thriller which, despite - or because of - the film's claustrophobic mise en scene and substantial running time, will keep your attention from beginning to end.

It's 2009, and the American-flagged cargo vessel MV Maersk Alabama is taken over by pirates in the Indian ocean. Captain Richard Phillips (Hanks) finds himself locked in a dangerous psychological war with Muse (Abdi), the leader of the Somali pack of pirates eager to impress their superiors with a sizable, multi-million dollar loot.

As the pirates sabotage the ship and render communication with the outside world near-impossible, it falls to Captain Phillips to ensure the safety of his crew.

Why this story makes for appealing Hollywood fodder should be clear to anyone in possession of even the most rudimentary number of brain cells. For once, here's a tale of one hero facing insurmountable odds... and it's actually based on fact!

But any filmmaker worth his salt would not coast on this fact alone. Luckily, Greengrass is certainly worth his salt (unfortunately, being at the helm of a large blockbuster doesn't always guarantee this to be so) and he ekes out more than just superficial thrills from the story.

Not that he isn't helped by the cast. Carefully picking out non-glamorous players - and I'm not just talking about the largely amateur cast portraying the Somali pirates - Greengrass makes sure you're concentrating on the drama at hand, and nothing else.

There would have been no better choice than Hanks for the main role: apart from being Hollywood's go-to Everyman, he works in tandem with Greengrass to keep his nerves bubbling below the surface - and a final, cathartic release at the end makes for a glorious emotional gut-punch.

But it wouldn't be right to say that Abdi is as unassuming about his role as everyone else, and neither is that an indictment. The taxi-driver-turned actor has undoubtedly secured his next gig behind the lengths on the strength of his performance here. He's a menacingly quiet villain - in contrast, significantly, to his loud and overbearing pirate colleague Bilal (Barkhad Abdirahman) - and his gangly frame and jutting cheekbones admittedly help his powerful screen presence. But it's clear that his lack of acting experience has been put to good use by Greengrass. You sense the emotionally loose, ego-free immersion in the character: the roving glare of his milk-white eyes, his twisty-turny body language... there's something of Heath Ledger's Joker here, and observing his career from here on out will be a thrilling prospect.

Greengrass, helped along by screenwriter Billy Ray, makes nothing easy for himself, and this includes the ethical alignment of the film's characters. The pirates in particular are impressively drawn out: on the one hand, there's no effort made to soften their base aggression and moral bankruptcy. But they're also framed in a very particular context: they're pawns in a much larger criminal network which in turn - it is suggested - is only enabled by Western systems.

Apart from there being no real opportunities for Somalis once you take away piracy and fishing, Muse also suggests that fishing is, in fact, a dead end occupation, because the "big American boats come, and they take all the fish".

Greengrass doesn't suggest that their actions are excusable. But he has the boldness to suggest that, unlike other Hollywood blockbusters would have us believe, it takes more than one singular act of heroism to change the way corrupt systems function.