Captain Phillips

Tom Hanks plays Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama cargo ship. While delivering relief goods to Kenya in 2009, his ship encounters Somali pirates who couldn’t give a rat’s ass about charity and try multiple times to board his ship. They eventually succeed, putting into play a crazy hostage drama that results in Phillips being taken aboard a space capsule-sized lifeboat with his captors. Hanks gives an expert performance that is just another notch in a great career. Fortifying the story with a terrifying yet somehow oddly sympathetic performance is Barkhad Abdi as Muse, the pirate leader. One of the major strengths of this film is the relationship between Phillips and Muse, one that basically starts with Muse informing Phillips that he is no longer the captain of his own ship. Director Paul Greengrass mellows out on his shaky cam a bit, and delivers one of his best efforts yet.