Movie Review

Captain Richard Phillips & the Hijacking of the Somalia Pirates

The realistic story about Captain Phillips will exceed your expectations. The main character, Captain Phillips played by Tom Hanks acts as the role of the real Captain Phillips who was held hostage by the Somalia pirates in 2009. Barkhad Albi played by Abduwali Muse acts as the role as the captain of the Somalia pirates and the mastermind of the plan to "hijack" the ship. The merchant marine captain, Shane Murphy is played by Michael Churnus and the seal commander is played by Max Martini. The plot of the story was developed when the U.S containership, Maersk Alabama sailed toward its destination. The destination required the ship to sail by the horn of Africa where their is a lot of pirate activity. Captain Phillips and Shane Murphy called a drill to see if the crew was prepared for what might come, during the drill the ship is chased by Somalia pirates in two skiffs. Knowing that the pirates could hear the radio, Captain Phillips tried to trick them by calling a warship. One of the pirate skiffs turns around while the other loses control when sailing through the waves. Albi's boat returns the next day with four pirates, the crew on the ship try to stop them however the pirates mange to get on the ship by hooking the ladder on the ship. The pirates are threatening to search the boat while Captain Phillips is trying to flee them away by offering $30,000. The crew holds a knife to Albi and manage to get the pirates and Albi in a lifeboat. When Captain Phillips shows the pirates how to use the boat they leave with the captain in the lifeboat and head to Somalia. This creates huge tensions between many of the characters and even creates a huge question, will the Captain make it out alive? (Better watch to find out) Captain Philips reveals the theme of heroic because he sacrificed himself for the better of his crew and his family. Another theme that is revealed throughout the movie is judgement, when watching the movie many may think that a large crew can take down four pirates but as the story progresses the theme becomes more apparent. Audiences that would enjoy the movie would be an individual who is into dramatic and tension filled movies and has the ability to retain information because towards the beginning it might be confusing why the mission to the african horn is taking place. In my opinion, the movie had its ups and downs. Towards the beginning I was very confused on what was going on because i wasn't sure if the movie would just be about the crew driving to its destination. But as more characters became developed the plot grew thicker, the story became more interesting. Towards the end was when i was the most driven in the context of the movie and was hard to get my eyes off of it. An example of character-driven was Captain Phillips. As he became the "bigger person" and was willing to save his crew for the life of his the audience began to care about him, when he was held hostage and was attempting to write letters to his family the audience began to care more as well. Over all i would rate this move a 9/10 because the movie was based on a true story and did a great job trying to express that and showed challenges that the audience could relate too, however the beginning of the story was just a little confusing and i wish it caught my attention a little more but this could just be me. I would highly recommend this movie, it will for sure exceed your expectations!