Tom saves the world – again

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Captain Phillips (M)
Starring: Tom Hanks – well, really only Tom Hanks

BLAND American everyman Tom Hanks saddles up to save the world – not for the first time.
There’s a lot of Oscars buzz around this one, but it’s hard to avoid the feeling we’ve done it all before.
Director Paul Greengrass shoots it all in his usual shaky, hand-held cinema verite style that makes you feel like you’re watching a quasi -or is that queasy – documentary on National Geographic channel.
Hanks plays the dour captain of an unarmed Merchant Marine freighter rounding the horn of Africa. Despite the fact that no US ship has been taken by pirates in two centuries, Tom seems obsessed with the pirate threat, and can’t wait to get his bag limit of pirates.
Strangely, despite the over-the-top threat level, there’s not a gun or an armed guard on the tub. Instead, they’re planning on using their fire hoses to beat AK-47 wielding Somali pirates. Hard to see how that plan could fail.
Unsurprisingly, the hose idea proves a bit wet in the face of automatic weapons fire, and the pirates are soon aboard and calling the shots.
The crew leads a spirited fightback against the decidedly B-team pirates, who are soon evicted, but not before they take Tom with them. Far from being thankful, the crew seems decidedly bitter at this development … but not as bitter as the pirates crammed into a smelly lifeboat with Hanks.
Being constrained by both the facts of this real-life story and the need for a Hollywood happy ending, Hanks of course survives. But it’s hard to escape the feeling that it would have been a better film if he and Greengrass had bitten the bullet.
– Jason Beck