Tom Hanks has become through roles from Saving Private Ryan to Forrest Gump the kind of American screen hero who, whatever the social standing or intellectual capacity of the character, stands for truth and decency and threatens no one – or at least no one unless they get out of line.
Captain Phillips, the title of the new action film by British director Paul Greengrass, suggests something heroic. It is based on real events in 2009 when Somali pirates hijacked an American container ship, the Maersk Alabama, taking its crew hostage, a situation that eventually escalated into a full-scale naval operation, 145 miles off the Somali coast.
Greengrass, however, is not a conventional action-picture director. His track record embraces both the evocation of real events – examples inc
19 October 2013, The Tablet
Captain Phillips
Cinema
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