Captains Courageous… or not.

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS details the real-life hijacking of the freighter ship Maersk Alabama by Somali pirates on April 8, 2009, and how its captain was taken hostage. And gaslights him into an undeserving hero.

Amongst his own officers, opinion was that the real Captain Richard Phillips was an arrogant, self-righteous prick. He was no selfless hero. So who does director Paul Greengrass cast as the cantankerous captain in this thriller? America’s sweetheart, Tom Hanks. Which tells us which way the film will skew. Because no matter what Phillips does, Hanks as Phillips will be regarded unconditionally as a good guy – even though the hijacking of his ship might have been avoided had Phillips swallowed his pride and followed anti-piracy protocols, taken the advice of superiors to be farther out to sea, and not made reckless mistakes during the hijack.

Captain Phillips did not follow orders, the ship was attacked, and he was responsible…
— Jimmy Sabga, crew, Maersk Alabama (in a lawsuit against Phillips for alleged incompetence and “willful, wanton and conscious disregard for their safety.”)

Now, being attacked is surely not the victim’s fault, however there are precautions that can be taken to minimize the potential for attack. And from all accounts, what the 53-year-old Phillips did was the maritime equivalent of walking down a dark alley wearing nothing but Daisy Duke cutoffs and clear heels. He was asking for it.

Nonetheless, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS is a gripping actioner, with compelling performances from every principal, and riveting sequences that ratchet the tension until the final moment of rescue. It’s a world and way of life that we rarely witness in cinema – The Way of the Merchant Mariner – and it’s intriguing viewing just for its immersion in maritime ethos. And there’s even some Shirtless Tom Hanks for the laydayz… It is only the casting of Mr. Hanks I have issue with, as an overarching misstep in the perception of this film’s titular character.

Also, how can a movie based on Phillips’s own 2010 book (A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea, co-writer Stephan Talty) be as objective as it should be? Any wonder his crew is livid at how he’s portrayed, with screenwriter Billy Ray seemingly taking Phillips at his word on how blameless he is (and hot! – Shirtless Tom Hanks!).

Early scenes show Phillips arriving at the port of Salalah in Oman (just north of Yemen), taking command of the Maersk and its cargo of containers, and outlining his course through the Gulf of Aden, then down the East African coast, past Somalia to Mombasa, Kenya.

We see Phillips getting snippy with his crew, ending their coffee break early, ordering them to keep the “pirate cages” locked, and running them through drills they don’t want to do. We also see him read an email warning of pirate attacks, which he disregards, and minimizes the danger to his wife back home (Catherine Keener). It’s a screenplay ploy at creating a dramatic arc for Phillips to overcome, and it’s meant to offset Hanks’ inbuilt niceness, but it’s a nothing burger, as the pirates attack almost immediately, and these unsavory character traits of Phillips are quickly forgotten, as the whole crew rallies around their captain.

Before the attack, the Somali pirates are humanized, which is commendable, as we see they are plundering ships to pay off a tyrannical warlord. And these impoverished young lads are raised in an environment where hijacking ships IS their “job.” This is what the failed state of Somalia spawns – risking their lives going up against monolith American cargo ships, these boys are not terrorists laboring under an ideology; they’re simply trying to survive. (I’m pretty sure this point of view is not examined in Phillips’ ghost-written book.)

None of the four starring Somali actors have ever acted before and give inspired naturalistic performances. Their leader is Muse (Barkhad Abdi); there’s the Hothead (Faysal Ahmed), the Driver (Mahat M. Ali) and the Kid (Barkhad Abdirahman). (In reality, all the pirates were between 17 and 19, but besides The Kid, these actors look between 20 and 25.) The Kid forms a bond with Phillips for showing him kindness in tending his injured foot. Driver drives the lifeboat. And I’m surprised Hothead doesn’t bash Phillips more often, with the amount of fumes comin’ out the top of his head. And Barkhad Abdi just explodes outa the gate as “The Captain”…

One hell of an actor, Abdi oozes quiet, laconic menace, his glare showing little patience for these bristling boys around him; he wants to get this job done for his survival. When he takes the bridge of the Maersk, his first words to Hanks as Phillips are ad-lib: “Look at me. Look at me! I’M the captain now!” So when Hanks hedges his lines indecisively, it’s because he really was caught off-guard. And Abdi’s lines remain in the film because they are thunderheads, spoken with a conviction so menacing that Tom must’ve leaked a little.

Like a mouse attacking an elephant – and winning.

What is most alarming is the inadequacy of the freighter ships in defending themselves with such expensive cargo onboard. If we wonder how pirates in a small skiff can actually capture a gargantuan container ship with skyscraper sides, it becomes obvious when we see the piffling methods Phillips adopts to deter them: giant hoses lining the perimeter of the ship spraying powerful water jets outwards; zigzagging to create a massive wake to flounder the skiff; the ruse of making a public radio call to an imaginary warship (that the pirates can pick up), and answering himself in a disguised voice that the warship is on its way; pirate cages which are basic barred doors that can be easily opened by shooting the locks off; down to shooting puny flares at the skiff… While the pirates… have GUNS.

It is jaw-dropping that these open water American vessels are completely unarmed, even though they face the daily threat of pirates, yet every second douchebag in America has a firearm on his hips, to ward off their biggest threat of a Karen in the parking lot.

While Muse searches the ship for booty, the Maersk crew (very naturalistically portrayed by Michael Chernus, Corey Johnson, Chris Mulkey as senior officers) manage to capture him, and Hothead grabs Phillips. The crew offer a trade – Muse for Phillips, even offering the pirates their lifeboat as escape.

Now this is where Reel Life gets tricky over Real Life. The film portrays Phillips volunteering to board the lifeboat, because “I gotta get them off this ship!” He shows Driver the controls, intending to exit as soon as Muse is aboard, but as soon as Muse enters the lifeboat, Hothead conks Phillips in the kidneys to kidnap him. The real-life crew of the Maersk are very touchy about this portrayal, citing that Phillips was always a hostage; that he never “voluntarily” entered the lifeboat, he was dragged in as a prisoner.

We vowed we were going to take it to our grave. We weren’t going to say anything, and then we hear this PR stuff coming out about him giving himself up, and he’s still hostage. The whole crew’s like, ‘What!?’ Everybody’s in shock.
— Mike Perry, Chief Engineer, Maersk Alabama, on CNN.

Lifeboat technology has come a long way since the rubber raft and people eating each other.

THE LIFEBOAT isn’t one of those inflatable rafts open to the elements — it’s a durable piece of hardware that looks like a cross between an orange boot and a spaceship; seating for 10, a bed, medical supplies, water, an engine and steering – it’s a regular little haven; makes abandoning ship feel almost luxurious. And the Maersk follows the pirates, mistreating Phillips all the way, in this little boot.

Then the SEALs arrive. When that giant warship rolls up on them with its claxons blaring, there is something magnificently American Big Dick about it. But wait—This is the USS Bainbridge “assigned to Counter-Piracy Task Force 151” – so this is the weapon! But it seems to be only a reactionary weapon, not a deterrent. Because pirates would obviously attack cargo ships nowhere near this warship. So what’s the point of it? We thank Almighty Industrial-Military Jesus for its presence, but it’s just another American Big Dick sailing around international waters, that the wanking U.S. Gubmint pretends is curbing piracy because they named it that.

Onboard the lifeboat, Phillips tries to reason with Muse: “There’s gotta be something more than being a fisherman and kidnapping people.” Comes the tragic reply: “Maybe in America, maybe in America…” No one from a First World country will feel the visceral desperation of having no other options in these underprivileged countries. Movie does a good job trying to make it as real as possible through Abdi’s heartbreaking performance. Phillips: “They’re not gonna let you get me back to Somalia – they would rather sink this boat.” And Muse replies, “I’ve come too far. I can’t go back.”

Muse would eventually be coaxed onto the warship for medical help (the Maersk crew had cut his hand badly in the captain exchange), and sharpshooters would take out the three other boys, in a tense, grand display of movie propaganda that keeps other countries fearing American military might. You think we’ll ever hear the real story from these covert ops thicknecks? Even local police falsify every report they write to make themselves look lawful; imagine how far into fantasy the top secret classified American Military reports go, in matters of murder in international waters, to make them look ethical and morally high ground and Geneva Convention.

After being held on the lifeboat almost five days, Phillips was rescued on April 12, 2009.

When Phillips is taken onboard the warship, Hanks gives an astounding rendition of trauma, as the ship’s medic tries to examine him, and he is completely checked out. He fades in and out, he cries, he stops crying; he can’t identify objects, can’t hear, he answers a random question, and his eyes check out again… Moments like these prove why Hanks is one of the greatest actors in the world. And we circle back around to the reason why they chose him for this strenuous lift in making a bad guy look like a good guy.

It may seem like I’m ragging on Phillips, but to make a hero comparison, Hanks himself would play another real life captain in 2016’s SULLY – the tale of Captain Chesley Sullenberger landing a crippled aircraft on the Hudson River – and no subversive reports would surface about Sullenberger, because he truly was the hero that Hanks portrayed onscreen. But with Phillips, it seems that for every person calling him a hero, there’s someone aching to “tell the truth” about why he’s not.

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS draws us into its world completely, by shooting onboard the Maersk Alabama’s sister ship (called, strangely enough, the Alabama Maersk), so the authenticity is irreproachable – exact surroundings, no set dressing or CGI, everything tangibly real. Same goes for the warship – a real life American Big Dick, populated by real cavemen—I mean, crewmen. All followed by director Greengrass’s hand-held non-intrusive steadi-shaki-cams.

Final title cards tell us Abduwali Muse was convicted of piracy and is serving a 33-year sentence in Indiana. We can’t help but feel sorry for him, knowing his poverty-stricken, violence-bred background. And Captain Phillips went back to sea a year later. Was he a better man for the experience? His crew tell us no. But a book and a movie tell us he’s a hero. And who are we to question American Big Dick?

END

I’m too sexy for my existential crisis.

He’s a BLADE RUNNER in 2049. And he’s a Replicant – a robot that resembles humans. And he hunts older-model Replicants that are not as gorgeous as him. And – unlike the last guy – he’s terrific at his job!

Ryan Gosling is Agent K, a Nexus-9 Replicant, the newest products of the Wallace Company, trusted to the extent that they are embedded in the police units known as blade runners – actually hunting other Replicants. (House niggers of the future!) Unlike the older Replicants with the four-year lifespan, that were implanted with memories and thought they were human, K has an open-ended lifespan, implanted memories and knows he is not human. So do all the other human police, who deride him as a “fucking skin-job” at every opportunity.

We meet K on a particularly tough “retirement” job, against a bodybuilt Replicant (Dave Bautista) who speaks of a “miracle” before his demise.

Before we go any further, note that we are in the first scene of the movie, and already we are so beautifully immersed in futuristic élan, we take it for granted. Like its predecessor, the sights and technologies and concepts are seamlessly woven into BLADE RUNNER 2049: K’s drone, videoing and infrared-scanning the area, K’s hovercar and its interior, the steel-choked city that K flies over to arrive at this desolate farm stretching into the ochre distance… The difference between Ridley Scott’s 1982 BLADE RUNNER and this movie is that we expect to see seamless wondrous efx shots. Yet it’s not bombastic efx for the sake of impressing the children of JUPITER ASCENDING or VALERIAN. To their credit, the production designers and art department have done Ridley Scott proud,  keeping this whole production looking uniquely BLADE RUNNER, capturing not only the synthetic feel of the atmosphere in a dreary rain-drenched Los Angeles overrun by corporate ads, but the visceral tone of the first film, a cerebral orgasmatron of wired teeth and leather fists.

“Tell me how my lips may be of service to you? Honestly, I have no idea.”

And there is something more. Screenwriters Hampton Fancher and Michael Green, with director Denis Villenueve, have meshed their visually intense experience with a level of anxiety and claustrophobia that borders on true horror movie eeriness. A sense of dread pervades almost every scene, not the usual action movie suspense of bad guys versus good guys, but that ominous feeling you get when the hand under your bed is about to grab your leg.

So it is this dread that creeps up our spines when K unearths a secret box of bones on Bautista’s farm. Just what the—?

Back at base, after any disturbing mission, K undergoes the strident “baseline test” Whereas the original movie’s Voight-Kampff test was a relaxed series of questions to determine lack of empathy in a Replicant, in this movie the mind-intrusive process is to ensure the Replicant has not gained empathy; now a rigorous, clinical process of anxiety-inducing questions shotgunned at you.

Severe Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Penn) informs K the bones belong to Rachael – a Replicant who fled in 2019 with Blade Runner Deckard (Harrison Ford)! And she – died in childbirth. Bautista’s words come back to haunt K, “Because you’ve never seen a miracle!” He was referring to the child born of a Replicant. But this means she wasn’t a Replicant – she was a Repli-CAN. (Somebody slap me.)

Joshi orders K to find the child and “retire” it – before the public becomes aware that Replicants can give birth. The Earth is already a cluttered wasteland of the unfortunate lower classes who couldn’t afford to relocate off-world, and the panic of discovering that Replicants were blurring the lines between themselves and humans would devastate what remained of civilization, causing people to buy up all the toilet paper. Studies show this is how civilization falls…

Joshi asks K what would happen if she finished the bottle of whiskey they were sharing… Amazingly, K turns down Robin Wright’s hardbody – in favor of a softbody he has at home by the name of Joi (Ana de Armas – those lips!).

An A.I. hologram girlfriend that cooks, cleans and caresses (and might even be prettier than Ryan Gosling), Joi lays down a translucent steak dinner over K’s unappetizing sludge. Her existence depends on a wall panel and projection arms, so when K gifts her an “emanator,” it’s actually for him – a remote box that allows her to travel outside the tyranny of line of sight of her projector, so K can download her and take Joi anywhere…. (By the way, thank you to the writers for solving the girlfriend problem, which is not about turning them ON, but turning them OFF – when a call or text comes through, Joi freezes like a video being paused, so that K can read or answer his hologram messages. Wallace Company, you’ve sold me! Have one delivered to my home address, please.)

BLADE RUNNER 2049 cannot be digested by virgins. There is too much connective tissue with the cyberpunk original for a newbie or a forgetful veteran to appreciate. Thus I urge all Movie Maniacs – newbies and veterans alike – to watch BLADE RUNNER before immersing yourselves in the almost-superior BLADE RUNNER 2049. After all, it’s been 35 years. And a lot of implanted memories will be reinforced or proven fake when you renew your baseline. The smallest details of this film will jigsaw into place for you. You can thank me later.

K, though not human, has reservations about his mission: “I’ve never retired something that was born before.” Joshi: “What’s the difference?” K: “To be born is to have a soul, I guess.” (So the superstition of religion made it to 2049. And they implanted this stupidity/ignorance into their best model robots?! Wallace Company, make sure you keep that shit outa my sex doll.)

So begins K’s quest to hunt down the child of Deckard and Rachael. But clues leading to Deckard also lead K to the discovery that his memories were not implants, but real. A tiny wooden horse features in the most eerie throughline of the movie – truly, these sequences are horror-movie worthy – further confusing K, who visits the Memory Maker (Carla Juri), determined to dispel his fears, but she discombobulates him even more by acting too much like Amanda Plummer.

Joshi tells K he is “miles off his baseline.”

In this movie, the twist is in the blade runner himself: whereas Deckard was a human that suspected he might be Replicant, K is a Replicant that suspects he might be human. Not just any human – the child of a Replicant and a human – the child of Deckard! (That’s about right – Ryan Gosling’s face and abs are so perfect, he could only be a manufactured robot – or spawned by the Sexiest Man Alive 1998!)

The plot thickens: Corporate Wallace himself (Jared Leto, blind, with a hovering armada of eye-drones) is on his own quest to create a Replicant that can give birth, to accrue an army of Replicant slaves – or at least, that’s what I get from all his nebulous, faux-intellectual ramblings. His go-fer is a Nexus-8 Replicant named Luv (Sylvia Hoeks), whom he unleashes to track down Deckard and the child…

Hmm, Luv and Joi. Too clever-clever? Luv is pursuing K, trying to wipe out his Joi. He must get his hands around the throat of Luv to drown her in a sinking car. Is it just me reading this subtext, fellas?

Composers Benjamin Wallfisch (IT 2017) and Hans Zimmer (DUNKIRK) take their cues from the original’s Vangelis synth soundtrack to forge a “futuristic” sound design, at times raucous, disorienting and ear-splitting—[record scratch]—Where the hell is Harrison Ford?! Ah yes, the candy trailers sold you on Ryan and Harrison frolicking together in an orange froyo bedazzle – but Ford only appears late in the story as a very expensive McGuffin. Harrison’s smooth velvet slides out of the orange-black, pointing that gun at Ryan, bringing with him a much-needed ironic comedy relief.

Edward James Olmos reprises his role as Gaff, looking like the Mexican Colonel Sanders here, still folding origami animals.

Mackenzie Davis (how serendipitous that she’s a cross between Sean Young and Daryl Hannah) is a hooker that Joi hires for K, in a sad sequence where she tries to scratch K’s unscratchable itch, meshing her perfect beauty with the prostitute’s filthy booty – like sex with 3D glasses on.

And there’s even Barkhad Abdi (from CAPTAIN PHILIPS “I’m the captain now!”).

And we might THINK Sean Young cameos as Rachael… BUT… unbelievable as it sounds, that’s a CGI rendition! Yes, our real world version of a Replicant! (And Young had to be credited in the movie – because she is – SO – FUCKING – REAL!)

A Replicant freedom fighter tells K: “If a baby can come from one of us – we are our own masters.” Mackenzie echoes the original movie’s slogan: “More human than human.” Because “dying for the right cause is the most human thing we can do.”

Thus exposing the flaw in Wallace’s Grand Plan: he wants Replicants to reproduce for him “to populate a million worlds” as slaves. But how does he plan to police those slaves? Because if the Replicant freedom fighters have their way, they’d reproduce to amass an army against him and the humans. And even if “his” Replicants reach that million-world stage, they’d resort to the “rights and freedoms” stage quicksmart. Like every Darth and Caesar and Fuhrer and Dumbo Donald before him, Wallace’s desire outpaces his reality.

Director Villeneuve, known for his controlled, solemn filmmaking style (SICARIO, ARRIVAL 2016), along with his cinematographer, production designers and art directors, assault us with sights and sounds and emotions; twists of plot, dynamic performances shrouded in somberness, and creative credible fight scenes where we can witness K being terrific at his job.

In the scene where Wallace confronts Deckard, with the shadows of the surrounding pool cascading off the roof and walls, the LIGHTING keeps changing, seemingly in real time (meaning it’s a practical effect!), from heavy orange fading to gray, then black, then slowly back to stark raving orange again; this cycles during an unbroken take and is amazing for its continuity challenges!

We do not realize it as it progresses, but after we dismount, we realize that watching this movie is like riding a unicorn. Because everyone involved with the making of this movie – like K – is terrific at their jobs!

END