Yet another reason why I stay on
land!
Screenplay
By:
Billy Ray
Directed
By: Paul
Greengrass
I’ve been lukewarm on Paul
Greengrass for most of his filmmaking career. At times his filmmaking can be exhilarating;
BloodySunday, and United93. Just as often Mr. Greengrass’ filmmaking is pedestrian and subpar; TheBourne Supremacy, and TheBourne Ultimatum. Finding the middle ground between a traditional
approach to filming and the Chaos Cinema approach is of the utmost importance
in a Paul Greengrass film. When he falls prey to his desire to quick cut
everything so that he removes any sense of place, time, or space in his action
is when Mr. Greengrass is at his worst. He need not go full traditional in his
filmmaking approach, but he must avoid the rabbit hole of Chaos Cinema.
Captain
Phillips
represents the middle ground, as Mr. Greengrass avoids quick edits and cuts in
favor of shot composition that always expresses time and place. The ins and
outs of the ship and lifeboat that make up almost all of Captain Phillips’ locations need to be understood by the audience. Mr.
Greengrass stays out of trouble by focusing on where people are in relation to
the vessel they are on at that given moment. Quick cuts and fast editing would have
been extremely detrimental to a scene where we need to see a Somali pirate
distracted by a noise and drawn away from one side of the ship.
Mr. Greengrass also trusts his
actors implicitly in Captain Phillips.
It helps when your lead is someone as dependably trustworthy as Tom Hanks. However,
it’s in the supporting characters that Mr. Greengrass shows his trust. The
temptation had to be present to rely on Mr. Hanks to carry the majority of the
film. While it remains true that Mr. Hanks gives far and away the best
performance in Captain Phillips, he
doesn’t carry the film. Tense moments are dependent on the acting of the
supporting cast. Important moments in the film are wholly on the shoulders of
actors like Barkhad Abdirahman as Bilal. Mr. Greengrass doesn’t pull back from
the supporting cast, he stays on them and allows for them to carry the majority
of the weight of the film.
By avoiding fast cuts and editing
the action in Captain Phillips carries
an intensity it would otherwise lack. There’s nothing revolutionary about the
action in Captain Phillips, but it
gets the job done. I felt like I was being allowed an intimate portrait of men
putting themselves in danger. A lot of this is achieved by the way Mr.
Greengrass peppers the action throughout his film. It comes in spurts, and when
it does come the action in Captain
Phillips charges the film up to a near breaking point. Intensely intimate
action isn’t easy to come by, and Captain
Phillips delivers it in fine fashion.
There’s been some controversy
around Captain Phillips and the
legitimacy of its story. I’ll say this, I don’t care whether or not the story
behind Captain Phillips is
legitimate. What I care about is the end product that is the film and the level
of quality it achieves. I can tell you that Captain
Phillips is a darn great film, and that’s all it should be. Captain Phillips is a film, not a
historical document, and as a film it’s an exciting jaunt.
Rating:
9/10
Cheers,
Bill Thompson
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