SYNOPSIS: Based on the true story of Captain Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) who took on a routine voyage around the Horn of Africa in April 2009 when his ship was attacked by Somali Pirates led by Muse (Barkhad Abdi). “Nobody gets hurt,” Muse says. “Its just business.” But business turns violent when it becomes clear the expected million-dollar payday Muse and company were expecting isn’t going to pan out. As the situation escalates Phillips is taken aboard a life raft, kidnapped, bound for Somalia where he’ll be held for ransom.
STAR RATINGS:
Richard: 4 ½ Stars
Mark: 4 Stars
Richard: Mark, I don’t think it’s fair to charge audiences full price for screenings of Captain Phillips. While watching this I was reminded of the old Monster Trucks ads that bellowed, “You Pay for the Whole Seat but You’ll Only Need the Edge!” Director Paul Greengrass is a master of action who does a great job of portraying the vastness of the ocean and the isolation of the ship and its crew. I was dangling off the fron of my seat from about the 30 minute mark. You?
Mark: Yes, in fact I was so on edge I have a slicemark across my butt. I was so grateful the movie doesn’t waste a lot of time going into the backstories of the crew. The pirates arrive quickly and brutally. I was worried we’d have to endure a lot of bleeding heart nonsense about the pirates and their “point of view”. But that is kept to a minimum and the bad guys get to be bad guys and Tom Hanks, once again, can be a saint among men.
RC: I thought Hanks was terrific here. He is saintly, but he’s also heroic and stoic. I think it might have been easy to overplay this role but he keeps it subdued for the most part. (SPOILER ALERT) It’s only in the film’s final moments, when the ordeal is over, that Hanks really unloads with the kind of raw and shell shocked reaction that the Academy is going to love.
MB: The academy may also love the Somali pirate captain, Barhkad Abdi, who goes toe to toe with Hanks through the whole movie. I haven’t seen such a scary, haunting face since the days of German Expressionist cinema! The movie is riveting, but it isn’t surprising. There’s only one way this movie can end and it should be obvious halfway through. That having been said, I have no fingernails left.
RC: Abdi is great. This is an action movie and as written he is primarily a plot device to keep the action moving forward, but despite an underwritten part he brings some humanity to the villain role. His explanation for his way of life, that he is a victim of limited opportunity and not a bad man, helps place his actions in context.
MB: Greengrass has passed this way before, in United 93. But this is a lesser known story, so it’s easier to tense up and enjoy it.
“Green Zone” starts with a bang. Or more rightly stated, a series of bangs. Set in Bagdad on the first night of the shock and awe campaign, the opening minutes are a harrowing portrait of what it must be like to be under massive fire. It’s a frenetic beginning, shot in a wild cinema verite style, which will leave many in the audience wishing someone would buy director Paul Greengrass a tripod.
Matt Damon, reuniting with Greengrass after two Jason Bourne thrillers, is Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller. He’s a good soldier who allows creeping doubt about the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction to force him to go rouge. Breaking ranks from the Pentagon he aligns himself with a CIA Middle East expert Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller to try and ferret out the complicated truth. At odds with Miller is Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear), a freshly scrubbed Penatgon appointee who won’t let the soldier’s misgivings get in the way of his mission to bring democracy to Iraq.
Nobody shoots action like Greengrass. He breathed new life into the spy genre with the Bourne films, using handheld camera to put the viewer in the action. Shooting where most action directors fear to tread—in tight, claustrophobic spaces for example—he brings a breathless documentary feel to his films that has redefined how we watch action on screen. That’s mostly a good thing, but for all the excitement that his whiplash camera style creates it occasionally leaves me hungry for an image or two that doesn’t look as though the camera was attached to a yoyo. His gritty style works for the gritty material in “Green Zone” but despite the masterful editing I found Greengrass’s propulsive approach overshadowed the story.
The action scenes are tense, but when the action stops, (which, frankly, isn’t very often) even the dialogue scenes move with the velocity of a bullet shot from a gun. It’s pedal to metal all the way with little regard to the nuances of storytelling.
Inspired by—it takes too many liberties with the text to be called “based on”—Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s book “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” it is a straightforward story that dumbs down the story of Bush era Iraq policies to the level of a cut rate James Bond flick. The added political intrigue elevates things a tad but the addition of several characters right out of central casting makes one long for the days before every CIA operative character had a weary smile and a jaded heart.
Damon is comfortable mixing the game faced soldier with an earnest side and acquits himself well, particularly when in the actions scenes. By this time he and Greengrass must have a shorthand on set that allows them to blend character and action, and here it works.
The same can’t be said for Brendan Gleeson as CIA veteran Martin Brown. Gleeson, a fine actor, doesn’t have any action scenes, and seems to be an afterthought to the director who places such hoary old clichés as, “Don’t be so naive,” in his mouth. Ditto Amy Ryan as a Wall Street Journal writer. It seems if the characters aren’t shooting a gun or in constant motion than Greengrass doesn’t know exactly what to do with them.
There is no question that “Green Zone” is an adrenalized action film. Unfortunately it oversteps its reach when it tries to go highbrow with the political intrigue.
United 93, a re-enactment of the events leading up to the crash, in a Pennsylvania field, of United Airlines flight 93 on the morning of 9/11 captures both the calm and the chaos of that historic day.
The opening minutes of the film focus on the events just before flight 93 became airborne. We see the terrorists rising for Morning Prayer and carefree passengers and crew going about their day-to-day business. Once in the air the film cuts between the plane’s occupants and military personnel at the Northeast Air Defense Sector and air traffic controllers in New York and Boston. Director Paul Greengrass unfolds the story in real time for the duration of the 91-minute flight.
Greengrass has pieced together his version of events using recordings of cell phone calls made to loved ones in the final moments of the hijacked flight.
Shot in a quasi-documentary style United 93 is harrowing. Because we know the story and the tragic outcome, a sense of dread builds from the opening moments of the film, even before the first of the planes is hijacked. As the events of the day unfurl a sense of confusion develops as the people on the ground try to make sense of what has happened. Scrambling to prevent any more loss of life the military and air traffic controllers struggle to open a clear line of communication that will enable them to work together. Greengrass effectively illustrates the confusion, without pointing fingers or assigning blame for the slow response time.
The actual hijacking of flight 93 doesn’t happen for almost an hour into the film, but when it does Greengrass places the viewer directly in the action. Shot with jittery cameras, it feels as though you are aboard the plane as the chaos and violence of the day erupts.
The intimate shooting style, coupled with Greengrass’ decision not to name any of the on-board characters—your cabin mates on planes are usually anonymous—lends an air of realism to the film. These are average people in extraordinary circumstances and all are treated respectfully as they heroically try to thwart the hijackers plan. Greengrass doesn’t emotionally exploit the situation, he simply presents it in a way that is gut-wrenching, but not manipulative.
With his handling of this material director Paul Greengrass proves himself to be one of the great directors currently making movies. This is a film not simply to be seen, but to be experienced.
SYNOPSIS: Based on the true story of Captain Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) who took on a routine voyage around the Horn of Africa in April 2009 when his ship was attacked by Somali Pirates led by Muse (Barkhad Abdi). “Nobody gets hurt,” Muse says. “Its just business.” But business turns violent when it becomes clear the expected million-dollar payday Muse and company were expecting isn’t going to pan out. As the situation escalates Phillips is taken aboard a life raft, kidnapped, bound for Somalia where he’ll be held for ransom.
