Sea You Later Pirates!

Paul Greengrasses "Captain Philips" tells the dramatic story of Richard Phillip and his crews conflict with some pirates at sea. The film itself is a powerful journey of the Maersk Alabama being Hijacked by Somalian pirates. The ship was originally on a cargo delivery path to Mombasa from the United States. The captain chose to take the fastest and most efficient way to Mombassa, but it meant they would be awfully close to the somali coast. Which ended up making it very easy for the pirates to take over their ship. During the hijacking Captain Phillips is taken hostage by the pirates to search for the rest of the crew, who are wisely hiding in the engine room of the ship. Muse, captain of the pirate crew, ends up being taken hostage by the crew, so the pirates and the crew make an exchange, captain for captain. But the pirates don't uphold their side of the deal and leave the ship on a life boat with captain phillips, heading for the somali coast. Only to then have to deal with the SEALS, and all of america making sure this man comes home alive, no matter the cost. Captain Phillips is played by Tom Hanks, who does a fantastic job acting in this movie, there was never a point that the audience doesn't believe he is the real captain phillips. On the other hand the main pirate, Abduwali Muse is played by Barkhad Abdi. Barkhad does very well as muse and actually won many awards for his performance in the film. Those are the two characters who are focused on the most, but there are still a lot of people you could consider "Important Characters". Like Shane Murphy who is played by Michael Chemus, he is the side captain of the ship who follows Philip around during the first half of the movie. As well as the other 3 pirates, Najee, Elmi and Bilal. Who are played by Faysal Ahmed, Mahat M. Ali, and Barkhad Abdirahman. In which all do a great job playing as Somalian pirates who have to make hard decision in order to achieve their goal and to prevent their own demise. The last character worth mentioning is the SEAL Commander, acted by Max Martini. He is mainly a side character since he shows up so late in the film, but he does have a lot of roles during his screen time and is the one making some of the bigger decisions near the end of the movie. The movie covers many themes and sends out quite a few messages, and one of the most prominent ones, was a theme of co-operation through conflict. This really plays into the film in many different aspects like the relationships between the pirates, between the crew, the crew and the pirates, and all of them in relation to the SEALS. The pirates not choosing to cooperate ends up putting them in a worse situation than they started in, and if they would have just followed directions, their piracy would have been beneficial to them, and nobody would have gotten hurt. Another theme was one of mercy, all throughout the film, the captain is trying to keep his crew safe no matter the cost, but yet is not willing to murder in cold blood any of the pirates if its needed. He even finds some good in the pirates and is able to put himself in their shoes, to see how hard their life is, and how they don't really have a choice in what they are doing either. Its a interesting contrast, when a film makes the bad guys seem not so bad, and this film definitely does this very well in my opinion. The movie is directed to a young adult and on audience, there is some foul language, and some very stressful scenes. Its rated pg-13 for a reason, so no 10 year olds should be seeing a movie like this, but they probably will anyways. Either way really only teenagers and above can understand and fully engage the movie. When it comes to cinematography, this film is spot on, and has its own style and rules it sticks to throughout the whole story. There are lots of helicopter shots, depth of field shots, and slightly shaky through hallway action sequences. As a cinematographer myself, I especially payed attention where the camera was, and the reason for what the camera was doing. For story telling, many critics say that the film makes captain phillips seem to much like a hero, when in real life he didn't do that much, he was just caught in the middle of all the conflict. They also say that they didn't focus enough on the fact that it was captain phillips fault they were boarded because they were boating to close to the coast, and that he knew the danger of doing so the whole time. The story thats told through the film, whether it be fully accurate or not, still is very powerful and inspiring. It subsequently makes you ask many moral questions of yourself, and makes the entire audience really think about the decisions of the characters, and the reasons behind their choices. Overall the film does a fantastic job at keeping the audience interested, telling a good story, and driving some moral themes home. So on a scale of one to ten buckets of jelly beans, its a 8 and a half buckets of jelly beans. I highly encourage everyone who is of a appropriate age, to go and see this film, you will not regret doing so.