Captain Phillips

'Captain Phillips' is Hollywood’s retelling of the hijack of the container ship MV Maersk Alabama by Somali pirates in 2009. Tom Hanks plays the man himself Captain Phillips.

The Alabama was heading toward the horn of Africa with a full load when it was attacked by two skiffs of armed Somalis. The ship basically puts the hammer down, creating such a wake that the skiffs give up but the next day they are back.

This time they have a better boat and better tactics, they get alongside and board the Alabama. The Somali pirate leader Muse (Barkhad Abdi) and his four henchmen head to the bridge, going through some pretty ineffective locked gates. Once on the bridge they hold Phillips and a few other crew members hostage at gun point. Meanwhile the rest of the crew are below deck hiding.

The crew manage to confuse the hijackers by shutting the power down and one of hijackers cuts his foot in the darkness on some broken glass that has deliberately been left out. Phillips then convinces them to cut their losses, take the money that is in the safe, and leave in the lifeboat. Unfortunately they decide to take Phillips with them. In pursuit though is not only the Albama itself but also the US Navy who have no intention of letting the Somalis get back to shore.

It’s a decent film but for me the whole thing falls down the minute they get into the lifeboat. There is great tension to the film at first, when the pirates are approaching the ship, when they board it and when they’re on it searching for the crew. All this time there is a sense of being trapped in the middle of nowhere with no cavalry about to come over the horizon and we know not who of his crew are going to live or die.

Unfortunately once Phillips is on the lifeboat and isolated from his crew, its story over because we know he lives and for me at least the tension just going down the pan. In fact the last hour or so spent on the lifeboat just seems to goes on and on and crawls to the expected conclusion where a rescued Phillips ends up in the care of the most unsympathetic nurse you've ever seen. I suppose Hollywood often changes endings but I just didn’t see them changing a survival to a death, unfortunately.

The best thing here is the battle of wits and wills between Phillips and Muse, and it is interesting to hear the pirates take on things but it’s not enough. The film needed another angle which it just didn't have. Like a distraught family at home, desperate for news of him, to give the film a much needed emotional angle but it wasn’t there. It all felt a bit hollow in the end and at least 30 minutes too long.

How I Live Now

How I Live Now is based on a book by Meg Rosoff which has won several awards for Young Adult literature, so it’s a book for teenagers.

The film comes with a 15 certificate, plenty of bleakness and its own teenager, an American lass called Elizabeth (Saoirse Ronan) or rather it’s Daisy; she would rather be called Daisy. See, I told you she was troubled but then aren’t all teenagers.

Her father sends her to stay in the English countryside and she’s not impressed but if that wasn’t enough to piss her off, the fact World War III breaks out during her stay certainly was. 

She’s not impressed by much actually; in fact the only thing she is impressed with is Edmond (George Mackay). He sucks her finger after she’s cut herself and she swoons. Most likely because she is terrified of germs and infection and here is someone sucking her blood. Ewww, my hero.

Edmond is one of the young cousins she is staying with along with Isaac (Tom Holland) and Piper (Harley Bird). 

When their mother disappears off to Geneva to possibly help stop the coming war, in which she clearly fails as a nuclear bomb is dropped on London, the kids are left home alone. Martial law is declared and the kids decamp to the barn, where they Daisy and Edmond consummate their friendship.  

Then the military move in, seize them and evacuated them, splitting the boys and the girls up. 

Daisy and Edmond vow to escape and reunite back at the cottage. After awhile sorting potatoes, Daisy flees with Piper in tow. Steeled by the need to be strong for her younger cousin and also by her desire to be re-entangled with Edmund, Daisy deals admirably with the situations thrust at her and proves to be no mean shot with a pistol.

It’s a long journey home and they witness many things before they finally make it back where hopefully Edmond is waiting for her, along with another freshly ironed outfit for her to wear.

It’s an entertaining film and I enjoyed it but it has to be said it all seemed very unrealistic in parts. Right from the opening scene where 14 year old Isaac drives Daisy home from the airport through an unlikely land war amidst a nuclear fallout to the kindly eagle who ultimately guides them home.

It does clear up one thing though. If you want your own teenager to buck up their ideas, let go of their moods and remove that huge bag of chips off their shoulder, the quickest way to do it is to start a nuclear war.