TORONTO — Captain Phillips has sailed into theatres to tell the true story of how a handful of Somali pirates took over the Maersk Alabama cargo ship in 2009 before U.S. Navy Seals swept in to end the seige.
Tom Hanks portrays Capt. Richard Phillips in the movie, which is directed by Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum, United 93) and based on Phillips’ book A Captain’s Duty.
Will audiences want to get on board another terrorism-related biopic? Can Captain Phillips defy Gravity or is it heading for troubled water? Here’s a look at some of the reviews.
“This film does an impeccable job of creating and tightening the narrative screws,” wrote Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times.
“The result is so propulsive that you may find yourself looking at your watch not out of boredom but because you’re not sure how much more tension you can stand.”
Marshall Fine of Hollywood & Fine gushed that Captain Phillips “puts you right in the middle of the action and never lets you go.”
He called it “gritty, gripping fare” and “a movie that will leave you shaken.”
At Newsradio 1060, Bill Wine opined Captain Phillips is “a competent real-life race-against-time nail-biter.”
“The film does not generate quite the same level of excruciating suspense as some of Greengrass’ previous triumphs,” he said, “but it nonetheless holds us hostage as it proceeds.”
Richard Corliss of TIME went in to the movie hoping Greengrass had given up his habit of using handheld cameras.
“Nope. Greengrass is back to his old shake-’n-break games,” Corliss said. “Shaky-cam complaints aside, Greengrass is a master at managing complicated activity with docudrama urgency.”
He said Captain Phillips is “more pounding than truly gripping.”
At Forbes, Scott Mendelson said it appeared as if Greengrass had cut back on the shaky camera work.
“He still uses handheld cameras and tight close-ups to establish claustrophobic intimacy, but it’s less distracting here than it has been in the past,” wrote Mendelson.
Most critics praised the actors in Captain Phillips, particularly Hanks.
“Hanks deftly captures Phillips’ blend of bravery, heroism and abject terror in a wonderfully minimalist performance,” wrote Claudia Puig of USA Today. “One of his best.”
Peter Howell of The Toronto Star agreed. “Abdi courts Oscar attention for his forceful performance — as does Hanks, already a two-time Best Actor winner.”
Mara Reinstein of US Weekly said it’s been too long since Hanks commanded the screen like he does in Captain Phillips.
“He takes the leadership role here with a calm confidence, carrying his crew and rattled audiences on his back,” she wrote. “In such a brutally tense outing, he’s the ideal choice to anchor it.”
NPR critic Bob Mondello said Hanks has “a distracting New England accent” but is otherwise persuasive.
In the New York Times, Manohla Dargis wrote: “Just as the movie races toward its foregone conclusion, it also begins siphoning off the excitement it has been building up all along. The big men with the big guns do their part, but the skin-prickling, carnal excitement that almost inevitably comes with certain types of screen violence never manifests, replaced instead by dread, anxiety, a shaking man and whole a lot of blood. It’s the kind of blood that most movies avoid and that, Mr. Greengrass suggests, is what remains unseen in global traumas like this. Some viewers may pump their fists but, I think, he wants this victory to shatter you.”
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