Movie Review of Captain Phillips (2013)

Talk of pirates tends to get consigned to the history books. The most common mental image involves parrots and hooks, against a backdrop of the Caribbean.

But piracy exists in the modern day too. Forget swash-buckling swords. Today's pirates carry semi-automatic rifles and sub-machine guns. They terrorize ships crossing to the east of Africa.

Captain Phillips tells the true story of an attack on an American cargo ship in 2009. Somali pirates were able to board the vessel from two skiffs. They demanded millions in ransom, then abducted the captain when their plans seemed set to be thwarted.

The hijack prompted a massive response from the US navy, with predictable results.

But this isn't a one-sided movie. Director Paul Greengrass wasn't interested in just telling the story from the American point of view. There was a reason why those four Somali men had turned pirate, and he wanted to make that clear too.

With stunning performances all round, Captain Phillips is a thought-provoking action and adventure movie. It kept me rapt from start to finish.

Nor were they the only cast members to portray their characters convincingly. I was genuinely chilled by Faysal Ahmed's half-crazed, gun-toting Bilal.  I wanted to cry for Barkhad Adbirahman's young, out-of-his-depth Little B.

The tension that all four pirates managed to recreate, alongside Tom Hanks, rendered this an entirely gripping movie.

What made it even more believable was that the dialogue between them was all Somalian. There were no subtitles either. Yet it really didn't matter. The Somali actors made it comprehensible through their body language, actions and expressions, without ever falling into the trap of being too blatant.

After a while, you even forget that you can't speak Somali. You're right there with them.

Yet I may have skipped too fast past Tom Hanks to get to his co-stars. Yes, we do anticipate perfection in his performance, but that isn't to take away from what he pulled off in this movie. There were scenes there which made me ache with wanting to comfort and/or rescue him.

Prepare to be moved emotionally in a way that you don't expect with action movies. They are all that good.