I thought the older you got, the less energy you had. This
is why you see people like Denzel or Connery shamelessly using body doubles in
their action scenes or you see Max von Sydow choosing to play a mute in
Extremely Loud; I mean why even bother learning lines anymore? But with Sir Thomas
Hanks it seems like he realizes that his time on this Earth is coming to an
end, so he feels the need to talk as much as he possibly can before he goes.
Every movie he releases now is a minimum of 130 minutes; just look at Extremely
Loud, the terrible Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, and Cloud Atlas. I know
Charlie Wilson’s War wasn’t all that long but man it sure feels like an
eternity when you have to watch Julia Roberts walking around looking ugly for an
hour and a half. Well Captain Phillips is no different and it features more Hanks
than you can handle. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Hanks; he was one of my
heroes in the 80’s. But too much exposure is clearly a bad thing and this is why I
can’t eat Wendy’s anymore. Damn them and their 99 cents menu!
The plot is fairly simple. Richard Phillips (Hanks) is the
captain of a cargo ship that is carrying food and water supplies off of the
coast of Africa. The second he boards the ship you can tell that he is a
captain that demands a lot from his crew and is a stickler for the rules. Once
they leave the port however, they realize that at some point in their journey
they will have to sail through unprotected waters off of the coast of Somalia, and
this area has been known to have a high number of pirate hijackings lately. So
he takes his crew through the training exercises they have in place to combat
any possible pirate attack. Meanwhile, forced back onto the water by the local
drug lord to find more loot is this small village which includes Muse and his crew. You can tell that they are
motivated to find as big of a bounty as they can so that their families are
safe back home. The paths of Phillips and Muse eventually collide and it leads
to an intense, frightening, and thrilling ride as Bourne Supremacy director
Paul Greengrass brings his action background into play here.
Thankfully he ditches the stupid shaky cam for the most part
but he is somehow able to make a small boat chasing an ocean liner seem somewhat
exciting. With each click that Muse and his crew gains on Hanks, you see the fear
and tension mount within Hank’s crew and you also notice the desperate
determination of Muse. Muse is played by a relative unknown in Barkhad Abdi.
His performance is pretty chilling in the fact that it seems way too natural
for him. He calls Hanks “Irish” due to his nationality and the entire time he keeps
trying to reassure him that everything will be alright once they receive the
money. But you can tell that this is less and less likely as the situation
drags on and you get a better sense of how comfortable Muse is growing into the
skin of a hijacker.
The best part of the movie is the actual hijacking itself
and the events that immediately follow. However the second things escalate and
it’s just Muse and his crew with Hanks on the lifeboat, the movie slows down
considerably and you find yourself looking at your watch more often than you
should. They can only threaten to kill Hanks so many times before it turns into
Puff Daddy threatening to shut down the studio on his rap group in his awful
yet awesome reality show, Making the Band. I swear, he said “I’m shuttin down
the studio” 50 times in one season, just ask Dave Chapelle.
So if you know anything about me, the fact that the bad guy’s
name is Muse (pronounced moo-say) makes me hate the movie off general principle
alone. But it’s not like it’s a bad movie, it’ s just that it’s too long and
you can clearly tell that some of the story was embellished. I can’t really fault
him though, I mean if I were telling the story I’d claim that I fought them off
in between sex sessions with Kim Kardashian. “Uh Muse and crew, y’all hold up
for a second, I have some business to attend to!”
The final scene alone should warrant a Golden Globe
nomination for Hanks but overall I have to rank this movie as kind of WEAK!
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