Captain Phillips

Paul Greengrass approaches Captain Phillips as a series of practical decisions taken under worsening pressure. An American container ship comes under attack from Somali pirates, and the film stays close to the work of trying to manage the danger. It is a gripping thriller, particularly good at making competence look fragile. The early explanation of the wider circumstances is heavy-handed, but once the confrontation takes hold, Greengrass trusts actions and faces.

Hanks plays Captain Richard Phillips as a man who keeps trying to do his job after the usual rules have stopped helping. He is terse, watchful and not especially interested in being liked, which helps enormously. We were frightened by the effort it seems to cost him to stay still. His guarded movements and fixed attention suggest someone concentrating on the next manageable task because anything larger would be unbearable. The film gives him time to convey that fear without making a speech about it.

Barkhad Abdi’s Muse makes the threat harder to dismiss, because his authority also looks precarious. Abdi gives him the force of someone who needs his orders to sound final, with desperation showing through the bravado. In their exchanges, Hanks and Abdi keep testing how much confidence the other man has left. We can see why the film wants us to consider the pressures on both men, although their immediate positions are plainly unequal. Abdi earns that attention without asking us to forget what Muse is doing.

Barry Ackroyd’s handheld photography keeps the camera close enough to faces for small changes in confidence to register. The movement can be tiring, but it makes the struggle feel physically uncomfortable rather than merely busy. Christopher Rouse’s editing keeps the sequence of pressures clear: an action prompts a response, and that response creates a new problem. We can follow the decisions even while the camera is shaking. That is a considerable part of why the suspense holds for 134 minutes.

Paul Kirby’s production design is effective because the ship feels like somewhere people work. Its cramped spaces give the actors little room to retreat, and the resulting closeness makes the confrontations uncomfortable. Henry Jackman’s score is less helpful when it stresses danger that the performances have already made obvious. It maintains pressure, but the music sometimes pushes a scene that would be tense enough without it.

Billy Ray’s screenplay is weakest when it spells out the circumstances that have brought these men together. The opening exposition makes the comparison between their lives too tidy, and we can feel the dialogue preparing an explanation for the violence. The script acknowledges the economic pressures behind piracy, then moves on before examining them in much depth. The actors are more convincing when they show us frightened men trying to hold their positions. Abdi supplies much of the complexity through his performance.

Compared with a routine hijack thriller, this puts unusual weight on the strain of giving orders. Hanks never lets Phillips settle into the reassuring certainty of an action hero, and Abdi makes authority look like something Muse must keep proving. We recommend it warmly, with patience required for the opening explanations and a tolerance for the restless camera. Watch it when there is nothing else demanding attention, and leave a little quiet afterwards.