Captain Phillips (2013)

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The true story of Captain Richard Phillips and the 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of the US-flagged MV Maersk Alabama, the first American cargo ship to be hijacked in two hundred years. (imdb)

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Directed By: Paul Greengrass

Written By: Billy Ray, Richard Phillips, Stephan Talty

Starring: Tom Hanks, Catherine Keener, Chris Mulkey, Yul Vazquez, Corey Johnson, Max Martini, David Warshofsky, Michael Chernus, Barkhad Abdi, Faysal Ahmed, Barkhad Abdirahman, Mahat M. Ali

Genres: Drama, Suspense/Thriller, Action, Biography

Country: USA

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Captain Phillips belongs to 49 collections

1. Academy Award - Oscar - Best Picture and Nominees (collaborative: moderated by smviper00 - 46 stars)

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All Ratings | With Reviews

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TCI | Percentile | Date Rated | # Stars (Reviews)

Stars	User	Rating
12	Jerky	60 _72nd
They should have hired Steven Seagal as the cook on this ship. Things would have ended a lot sooner. On that same note, why don't these shipping companies hire private security with weapons for these runs? I'm pretty sure you can shoot a couple of Somalians in the head in international waters without it being a crime. I'm gonna open a school for sniper training and then contract them out to cargo ships sailing around Africa. I'm gonna be rich kid!!!!
6	Moribunny	38 _23rd
You have the pirates scream, you have the hostage shout, you rinse and you repeat and shake the camera all about; you let the bad guys pause 'fore they decide to scratch their butt, that's what a Greengrass thriller is all about.
4	Kojiless	68 _72nd
The true story about the time Tom Hanks had to live in an airport with a volleyball because a hijacker from Seattle wanted to buy one of those big roll-up pianos. Come for the Turner, stay for the Hooch.
4	spleen	89 _93rd
Thanks to the real-life efforts of Captain Phillips and his crew, it is now maritime law that all ships traveling in international waters carry THREE emergency flares.
3	frederic_g54	7 _57th
Solid action thriller, though I found the similarly themed "Kapringen" to be far more effective in its psychological implications and the 2nd half kinda descends into typical Hollywood sensationalism. Barkhad Abdi is a welcome new face and Hanks hasn't been this good in years.
3	KasperL	80 _86th
Intense and well-acted. On par with 'United 93'.
3	chadisdanger	82 _69th
Greengrass can certainly make a quality thriller. He excels at creating a sense of immediacy and urgency, which go a long way in giving the film genuine stakes as opposed to being too far removed from reality like many other action thrillers. Also impressive is the way Greengrass carefully avoids fully demonizing the pirates while at the same time never really victimizing them or excusing them for their actions. Also, I think this one of Tom Hanks' best performances to date.
3	Paxton	75 _78th
I didn't ask for a version of The Life Aquatic that is decidedly unfunny, but it was a pretty gripping portrayal of true events. I would never ask a human being to try to hide from what they are, but at the same time, I'm not going to take you seriously if your name is Billy Ray. Sorry, I have my bigoted limitations.
3	LookJabba...	8 _76th
Captain Phillips is one of the most suspenseful cinematic experiences I've ever seen. Paul Greengrass ticks all the boxes when it comes to making dramas of this intensity. Tom Hanks gives one of his most intense and believable performances. I couldn't imagine anybody else taking on this role so convincingly and the same can be said for Barkhad Abdi who is as equally superb. The tension never fades and it escalates to the point where you feel apart of this overwhelmingly suspenseful experience.
2	AFlickering	1 _4th
more like captain post-9/11ips
2	andayb	70 _80th
cap'n philips and his merry band of well-fed seamen try to defend their gigantic ship against a handful of severely undernourished somalian kids, using some old-school tactics straight from "home alone". joking aside, greengrass shows he's still a master at pacing, and abdi's excellent performance makes this worth its while.
2	Ofterdingen	85 _97th
Flawless. Tom Hanks is better than ever. Paul Greengrass is better than ever.
2	VinegarBob	30 _12th
I'm sick of Paul Greengrass' hyperactive, disorienting filmmaking. His obsession with 'guerrilla' style camerawork was tiresome 7 years ago on United 93, and nothing's changed since then. Somebody please find this man a tripod. As for the story, it all plays out much as it did on the news. Hanks is fine, especially in the final scene, but the whole thing is strictly by the numbers, monotonous and feels interminably long. Ultimately it's a pointless and tedious film to sit through.
2	lena_c	5 _92nd
I knew he was good, but Hank's performance in the final scene did it for me. Thrilling, intense, moving and dramatically on-point. *Very good
2	nickwin_dk	86 _91st
Paul Greengrass just keeps to amaze me with another outstanding movie. Captain Phillips delivers a tight, action-packed story fraught with none of the usual missteps of the genre, and if it is indeed rewarded with the highest of honors, it will be well deserved.
2	Tony Irwin	87 _82nd
Outstanding, nuanced thriller. Greengrass' hyperactive style masks the careful and deliberate plotting in the sequence of events. It's tense and awful, yet wry and thoughtful. A nice companion piece to Zero Dark Thirty, I think.
2	dylanwilson6	90 _96th
I've seen it all over the place, including here but really it is the perfect word to describe this movie, TENSE! Even though you know they're going to board the ship, you're still on the edge of your seat, not exactly sure what's going to happen next. For a two hour movie, this movie seemed to race right through it without really any dead space. Hanks is amazing in this, and Abdi was just powerful on screen. Up there for one of my favourites of the year.
2	m3tan	0 _1st
For me, cardinal sin #1 for Hollywood is presenting a historical event in a tense docudrama style, yet heaping piles and piles of total bullshit. Phillips is presented as a hero yet the entire real-life crew almost mutinied against him because he took unnecessary risks that led to the hijacking... -65 points for completely rewriting history to sell tickets.
2	backwardsuit	69 _44th
Pretty straightforward dramatization of a "newsworthy" piracy situation that does many things right in terms of staging & tension building. Portrayals of real people aside Hanks & the rest do a decent job while Abdi really commands the screen. Built as a confrontation between two disparate yet globally connected realities with at least some aspirations towards political nuance. In that light some details of writing & style stuck out as off-putting. That this was likely unintentional is telling.
1	nuotio	65 _83rd
Would make a nice double feature with Danish "A Hijacking" which focuses on negotiations between the shipping company and pirates, while this has a clear protagonist and involves the Navy. Based on true events, this still feels more "cinematic" out of the two. That's mainly because of Hanks' Captain Phillips, who always does the right thing and whose only fault seems to be taking things a bit too seriously. That makes him a boring character - any vulnerability would have improved the film.
1	Ytadel	8 _93rd
It reminds me a lot of United 93 in Greengrass' relentlessly streamlined, straight-to-business storytelling and hyper-naturalistic film grammar, which starts to feel claustrophobic and intentionally exhausting by the film's final act. Hanks was definitely the right choice for the role.
1	Derekstar	100 _96th
We've seen Hostages on a Plane. We've seen Hostages on a Boat. If Paul Greengrass's next movie isn't Hostages in Space I'll just go ahead and kill myself right now.
1	Mojo_Jojo	67 _79th
If you are looking for ransom, Tom Hanks can tell you he doesn't have money. But what he does have is a very particular set of skills; skills he have acquired over a very long career as the captain of a cargo ship
1	Alex Watkins	3 _38th
Hanks is great, and Greengrass is as reliable as ever in his penchant for heightened docudrama tension. Most of the Somali principals are very effectively humanized in ways both big and small, with a minimum of background. It would've been an easy pitfall for the film to fall into, so to see it so deftly avoided is refreshing.
1	PeaceAnarchy	83 _72nd
A solid, tense, captivating Greengrass picture. It felt a bit overlong to me, but the performances are compelling.
1	evrana	76 _62nd
I'm becoming a fan of Greengrass, he has an exceptional way of creating tension. The boarding of the ship by the pirates part was really breathtaking. Muse played by Abdi was an amazing depiction of a modern pirate and not just a "villain". So I did not feel that it was a "hero" movie. Also it has the best demonstration of post-traumatic shock I have seen in a movie.
1	Spunkie	50 _40th
Sense of dread in the last half hour was exceptional. That sums it up.
1	msprague	65 _46th
It was good but not exceptional. I think Greengrass would have hit this one out of the park if during the lifeboat scene he had Hanks scream out "Wilson!!!". That would have done it for me.
1	muutanet	59 _48th
Tom Hanks did a good job in a story of an impossible. The theme was difficult and running time way too long. The setup was luckily not as B&W as it could.
1	Ross	92 _97th
Wow! One of the most suspenseful films I have seen in a long time. The tense atmosphere increases throughout the film to a degree where it is almost unbearable. A great script with perfect pacing and a stellar performance by Hanks makes for a solid contender for movie of the year.
1	Wiche	81 _82nd
This is a strong movie thanks to some great performances, especially from Tom Hanks (the last ten minutes were truly Oscarworthy), great camerawork and pacing and some formidable directing. This is quite a simple story actually, but it grabbed my attention and never let go due to the constant tension.
1	Zealot185	83 _78th
With the true story hitting headlines so recently, I honestly did not have much interest in revisiting it via Hollywood film. In the end, I'm glad I did: aside from being a taut thriller-at-sea, Hanks is great in holding back the raw emotions as he tries to keep his crew safe, only to let it all go by the end of the film.
1	Langelund (CinemaZone.dk)	45 _29th
Flashy handheld shots, rapid editing and Tom Hanks in great shape can't make up for a surprisingly dull drama - with the exception of the last 20 minutes. The Danish 'Kapringen'/'A Hijacking' serves as a much tighter and interesting case study for this controversial subject.
1	graveyardtan	80 _57th
Hanks gives an all out performance in this fairly generic thriller, which save for its visceral ending, offers little in the way of the political resonance deserving of the subject matter.
1	Stewball	90 _93rd
OK, three things up front about the movie. 1). As a right winger looking for Greengrass to let his pinko slip to show, I didn't see it. 2). In line with that Greengrass made the pirate leader Muse (pronounced moose-a), into something of a complex sympathetic figure without turning him or the rest of them into victims--give him a gold star for finesse. 3). The ones playing the pirates were all born/raised in the Somali area and emigrated to the U.S. This is the first and only acting credit, or an [Full Review]
1	nauru	78 _88th
High intensity, perfect pacing, constant suspense, and a true sense of scale. None of the cast even seem like they are acting. What a treat to see a film with both an original plot and high production value. In creating immersive, high-intensity thrillers, Paul Greengrass is unsurpassed.
1	DavidBlast	80 _80th
A solid no nonsense suspense caper. Nothing more - and certainly nothing less.
1	mariane.c	100 _95th
Soooooo original. It's been a while since I've seen and truly exciting and original movie like this. We are all tired of bank robbery. ;)
1	bentien	80 _93rd
Excellent stuff. Intense, thrilling and moving. The military operation towards the end is the weakest part, but the acting from Hanks in the last five minutes or so is the best from him since Forrest Gump.
1	doughbaron	76 _67th
At first I thought the inconsistencies with real life events would weaken this film, but I was wrong. Paul Greengrass was the perfect director for this story as he executes terrifyingly tense moments to perfection. The climax felt eerily similar to the end of United 93, but with obviously more positive results. Hank's acting, especially in the last ten minutes, was awesome.
1	hellboy76	70 _79th
Even though much of this story is bullshit, Hanks is indeed very good and Greengrass weaves another tight thriller.
1	maakal	72 _44th
This was kind of ruined for me, since I had just read an article portraying the real life Captain Phillips as a douche bag. I should've waited to read about the real story after having seen the movie.
1	NothingsGood	80 _89th
Greengrass at his finest. Billy Ray at his finest. Tom Hanks at his finest. Gripping tension follows every shot and edit. This year's Argo but with characters and acting.
1	damil	75 _81st
I thought this was a good, engaging film. Tom Hanks was fantastic, but I didn't realise how fantastic until the end, where you truly understand what he was doing with the character. Much praise must also be given to the actors playing the pirates - they were very believable and appropriately scary. The only real problem I had with the film was the dialogue, which was, on occasion, a little contrived and obvious in being exposition.
1	quez2go	80 _73rd
a couple decades ago a movie like this would have starred Steven Seagal or some shit, but this really takes a terrorist/hostage movie in a totally different direction. Very well directed and shot and the whole movie feels very real.
1	ratedargh	75 _54th
If it was tightened up and lost some of the expository dialog and focused a bit more on the parallels between Phillips and Muse, it might have hit harder. It teases at this, but the film abandons Muse as a man forced into action by poverty and thieves above him on his hierarchy. Despite this, it's a tense thriller that will nauseate the viewer (in a welcome way!).
1	thorn969	36 _32nd
It's a decent movie, but it felt manipulative, trying to get Americans to cheer on the military without a real... story.
1	hotsake	81 _94th
A tense, very well acted drama based on a real event. I just wished that the movie was shorter as it dragged a couple times and I would start to feel my attention wander.
1	susie-mauve	69 _24th
Yeah, action-packed indeed, but nothing unpredictable happens. Best part is at the end, where you see a more natural, humnan reaction than in most films of such a genre. And if there's something that Tom Hanks masters, it's the natural & human performances, i'll give him that - here at his best.
1	lex	80 _53rd
A pure quality action thriller that never lets up the excitement with dominant performances from Hanks and Abdi. All the characters are fleshed out and humanized but the film is obviously much more interested in being a memorable adventure blockbuster rather than digging into the background and details of piracy in Somalia, for better or worse.
1	Sheldrake	80 _86th
Zero Dark Thirty minus the poetry. Still an effective thriller that shows how America will fix its own problems, even if that doesn't seem to help anyone else. Excellent acting.
1	flipzo	90 _85th
Very well done! Great playing by all the actors.
1	meymet	45 _10th
There is nothing interesting. American perspective is boring, no meaningful details about Somalians' background
1	amazedemon	65 _61st
Captain Phillips is a decent biopic that conventionally recreates the 2009 hijacking, staying relatively faithful to the actual events, if not the characters. Hanks and Abdi are good, and Greengrass successfully creates an atmosphere of tension throughout the film. Unfortunately the film still drags, with intermittent scenes that draw you back in. While it glances at the pirates motivations, the film ends up being a glorification of US military might, which is a shame.
1	bratings	91 _82nd
Captain Phillips successfully captures the tension and chaos its subject matter deserves, thanks to Paul Greengrass' deft direction and powerhouse performances from Tom Hanks and Barkhad Abdi.
1	Mist600	85 _67th
\| BACKFILLING LOAD OF FILMS NOT SEEN FOR LONG TIME -> Scores poss 20-30% out. Grateful if U drop me a cordial msg if U think memory dulled a gem or gave rosy tint 2 clunker. IE. Tell me WHY Im wrong & what U think I should score

Average Percentile 58.98% from 4361 Ratings