Paul Greengrass (2013)
Films like this and Gravity (which remains to be seen) will probably soon be – perhaps already are – the best that big-budget Hollywood has to offer. Even though the size of domestic screens is jeopardising the idea of a movie that must be seen in the cinema to be properly appreciated, that idea isn’t yet obsolete. Besides, home entertainment, whatever the facilities, still means real or potential distractions – although they exist in a cinema too, of course. When we saw Captain Phillips a pair just ahead of us talked continuously until a man in the same row bravely and politely asked them to stop, and they more or less did. The fact remains that Paul Greengrass’s movie is all about sustained tension and depends very considerably on a captive audience – something that only the audience in a darkened theatre can be. Captain Phillips isn’t a 3D or CGI extravaganza or a work of conspicuous breadth or depth but it is a good reason for going to the cinema and, put in a small screen at the Richmond Odeon presumably to make way for school half-term treats on larger ones, it attracted a full house. The movie is based on the true story of merchant mariner Richard Phillips’s capture by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean in 2009. The screenplay by Billy Ray (who also wrote Shattered Glass and adapted The Hunger Games) is based on Phillips’s own account of his experiences in his laboriously titled memoir A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS, and Dangerous Days at Sea.
Paul Greengrass essentially does only sustained tension – whether he’s directing a Jason Bourne movie or United 93. An early exchange in Captain Phillips, between Tom Hanks as Phillips and Catherine Keener as his wife, is proof of why Greengrass is right to play to his strength for as much of the film as possible. Phillips is preparing to fly to Oman, where he’ll take command of the cargo vessel Maersk Alabama on its journey to Mombasa through the Gulf of Aden. It’s fine to show his routine preparations but the dialogue as the couple drive to the airport – about things in the world changing too fast, and nothing feeling certain any more – is not only clumsily written but too emphatically shot by Greengrass. Even if you didn’t already know what the film was about, you know now this won’t be just another job for the captain. (Catherine Keener has just this one scene – it’s both sad to see her so briefly, and pointless to cast her in the role because she gives it shadings that count for nothing.) Greengrass then cuts to the preparations and competition among the Somali pirates for their next marine hijacking. Your immediate reaction is that revealing their intentions is counterproductive, will mean that the film is marking time until the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama actually occurs. In fact, it makes things more interesting – because you immediately know what the Somalis are up to, you start to look at them more as characters.
Once Richard Phillips is on board his ship, you start taking an interest in him as a character too. The captain’s friendlessness among his crew goes beyond his unique authority – Phillips is humourlessly efficient and his conversations with the other men are perfunctory. Tom Hanks gives a fine performance throughout; it’s entirely right that the film is named for the character he’s playing. Even with the excitement that Greengrass’s film-making generates, Captain Phillips needs a human centre. Hanks supplies both that and a star magnetism – but he doesn’t stand out from the rest of the cast in an attention-seeking way: his playing is well integrated with the unshowy, naturalistic style of the actors in smaller parts. The captain does the right thing: when the vessel is hijacked, that means doing all that he can to protect his crew – and, in due course, putting his own life on the line – but not, you sense, because of any tender feelings towards them. Like Phillips’ crew in the movie[1], you admire his courage and competence and ability to keep his wits about him in extremis, but you don’t warm to him. It’s to Tom Hanks’s credit that he doesn’t trade on the warmth that has helped make him an enduringly popular actor. This is a good example of how audience rapport can be used effectively without reminding the audience that you’re someone they usually like. It’s also to Hanks’s credit that there’s not much overtly dislikeable about Phillips yet his narrow-eyed sizing up of the situation, his refusal to buckle and his impatience with his captors (which has a slightly racist flavour) are a forbidding combination. When Phillips eventually loses control, you feel that he’s angry with himself for that. Hanks is astonishing in the film’s final sequences after the captain has been rescued – he expresses each emotion as if a raw nerve has been hit. He deserves this bravura finale after more than two hours of admirable control.
Paul Greengrass is expert at fusing quasi-documentary description of physical and logistical details with a drive to keep the audience on edge. The film editing (by Christopher Rouse) and sound editing (by Oliver Tarney) are terrific – and the silence that eventually follows sustained high-volume sequences is powerful. I don’t, as I guess many people will, find the film almost unbearably exciting but it is fully absorbing. Once Phillips has become the pirates’ sole hostage, there’s a brief lowering of the tension because you assume that he’s bound to come through unscathed yet the tension returns: if you don’t know or can’t remember what actually happened, you may experience real doubts about whether Phillips will survive. (I continued to expect him to do so mainly because I reckoned that, if he’d died, he would have been presented heroically in a less qualified way.) Among the pirates, Barkhad Ali, as their leader, and Faysal Ahmed, the most scarily hot-headed of his accomplices, are outstanding. With their molten eyes and extraordinary facial bone structure, they’re remarkable camera subjects; they’re also very good at conveying the warring imperatives of honour and profit that drive the hi-jackers. It is ironically true that, as Phillips tells the pirates at one point, the Maersk Alabama’s cargo included relief supplies bound for Kenya, Uganda and Somalia.
30 October 2013
[1] Although not like his crew in real life, according to Wikipedia: ‘In a New York Post article, some of the crew members accused the film of being inaccurate in facts and the portrayal of Phillips. Eleven crew members have sued the Waterman Steamship Corporation and Maersk Line for nearly $50 million alleging “willful, wanton and conscious disregard for their safety”. The article states that Phillips received seven e-mails about the increasing threat of piracy near Somalia, but that Phillips ignored all the warnings and kept them from his crew.’
