***These Are Not Your Johnny Depp Pirates-Tom Hanks’ Captain Phillips

 

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Captain Phillips, starring Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi, 2013

For a while, the last few years anyway, pirates had a pretty good cinematic reputation as a result of Johnny Depp’s Pirates of the Caribbean series. You know one for all, all for one where even the bad guy pirates were merely misunderstood rather than monstrous barnacles on our homeland, the sea (nice, right). And the good guy pirates, if they would only settle down a little and maybe join a twelve- step program, would be accepted in many a respectable neighborhood as colorful figures sprucing up the leafy suburbs. Going back to childhood even bad guy pirates like Long John Silver in Treasure Island were just irascible figures who needed a couple of breaks. At worst the lot of them were just out to make a little dough doing the best they could by going where the money was on the high seas-the ships. But as the Somalian pirates (and ex-farmers and fishermen) in the high seas drama under review, Captain Phillips, make clear all bets are off as far as that previous characterization of this nasty breed goes- except the money part- they are certainly one with their earlier brethren in seeing booty (no, not that booty) as the sole reason to be in this dangerous occupation.

The story-line here, based on the real life incident involving Captain Phillips, is pretty straight forward, pretty much out of today’s headlines. The Horn of Africa is a key world trade shipping lane which is moreover adjacent to Somalia (and other coastal African countries) where due to political, environmental, and man-made destruction the old ways of life, farming and fishing, have dried up and many young men in need of work find it on the high seas as pirates. That is where the money is. Not so much the question of taking cargoes as the ability to highjack a ship or passengers for ransom. And that is what happens here to the ship that Captain Phillips (played by Tom Hanks) is carefully navigating through the straits.

The difference here is, the difference that makes this a dramatic presentation, that Captain Phillips is bound to defend his ship in the old-fashion code of the sea as best he could. Through evasions, through negotiations, and eventually through force (after the pirates and captain wind up on a modern day lifeboat away from the ship) , through the force of the U.S. Navy as it turns out in this situation the pirates are thwarted in their desire to make money. Along the way we get the full range of emotions and ploys by the captain as he tries to save his ship and the “captain” pirate (played by Barkhad Abdi) with counter-ploys as he tries to control his increasing restricted environment as well. Yeah, those boys were not Johnny’s pirates.