Captain Phillips-2013

Director-Paul Greengrass

Starring-Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi

Scott’s Review #28

Reviewed June 17, 2014

Grade: B

Captain Phillips is an intense, gripping, action/adventure/thriller type film nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.

As much as I enjoyed the film, I do not think a nomination for the top honor is warranted. I feel like I have seen this type of film many times before and the underlining tone of “USA- good, other countries- bad”, whether intentional or unintentional, distracted me.

Another distraction I noticed was that all the protagonists are white whereas all of the antagonists are African. This is based on a true story, yes, but it seems to be glorified.

I felt like the target audience had to be older, white, conservative men, who would surely revel in this type of film.

To be fair, Tom Hanks is great and his performance during the last 15 minutes of the movie should have cemented him an Oscar nod.

The main villain, played by a complete unknown, Barkhad Abdi, was excellent, especially considering the actor had no acting experience. What a big break!

Overall, interesting, exciting experience, but falls short of the Oscar glory.

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor-Barkhad Abdi, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Film Editing