MINI-REVIEW: Captain Phillips

MOVIE
Captain Phillips

CAST
Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi

RATING
PG-13

RELEASE
October 11, 2013

DIRECTOR
Paul Greengrass

STUDIO
Columbia Pictures

RUNNING TIME
2 hours 14 minutes





STARS
***1/2








REVIEW:

While I was watching the new Tom Hanks movie "Captain Phillips," I couldn't help but feel like I've seen this type of movie before.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it just felt like I've been on this type of "true story" journey countless times before.  That is, until the film's final 15 minutes happened, and then my jaw was finally on the ground in awe and amazement.  Without spoiling anything, what I will say that, without those last 15 minutes being the way they were, "Captain Phillips" would have just been a good movie, nothing more and nothing less.  However thanks to its intense and emotional finale, the film for me went from being good to being great.  As a whole, "Captain Phillips" is like a lot of thrillers that come out around this type of year, but thanks to the stellar performances from Tom Hanks and Barkhad Abdi, a flowing narrative, and a very intense vibe gushing throughout it, this is a movie well worth your time and kind of like this year's "Zero Dark Thirty," despite the latter being the better of the two.

Tom Hanks for the most part gives off a very safe and good performance, but his greatness doesn't truly shine until the film's epic climatic finale where he once again proves that he's one of the best actors in movie history.  I can't even go on to explain why he's so good because it spoils the end of the movie, so I would just suggest going to see the film and judge for yourself.  As for the actors playing the Somali Pirates, they are all fantastic, particularly the lead pirate played by Barkhad Abdi.  For first time actors, they give off very strong, powerful, and impressive performances that make you believe they are actual Pirates in real life.  Everyone else in the film is too small to tell whether they're good or not, but Hanks and the actors playing the pirates are fantastic here.

As a whole, "Captain Phillips" is a very good movie that happens to have one of the best finales to a film all year.  Tom Hanks gives a strong performance, as do the men playing the Somali Pirates.  Director Paul Greengrass definitely has a good craft at making movies, but he does like shaky-cam a bit too much, despite working for this film pretty well.  I felt that, until the final 10 minutes, the movie played itself safe and like any typical true-story thriller, which disappointed me considering what I had heard from friends who had seen this before me.  Also, the Pirates tended to repeat their dialogue a lot, which personally annoyed me, yet I still understood why the script made these Pirates do that.  The film as a whole feels repetitive, but still, this is definitely a film to see on the big screen for the story and Hanks' performance alone.  It's not as exhilarating as "Zero Dark Thirty" or "Argo," but it is still a solid thriller well worth your time,