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

Climbing the outside of the Washington Monument: Touristing Made Easy!

This ain’t your daddy’s underoos...

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING follows the retconned Peter Parker in his quest to become Tony Stark’s bottom bitch.

It’s one of the best superhero movies of the modern era, capturing the tone, humor and desires of its hero perfectly. But is nobody going to protest the blatant retroactive continuity on Spider-Man’s suit? I guess not, because experiencing this movie is much like being webbed in the face – vigorous fun and bombastic entertainment, but if you open your eyes too wide, the white goo starts to sting…

In this telling of the Spider-Man tale, we see no radioactive spider-bite, no murder of Uncle Ben, no guilt-ridden Peter turning to crime-fighting, no J. Jonah Jameson. It’s taken for granted we are well-versed in Spidey lore, so hit the ground running after Spider-Man has fought Captain America’s Avengers (as seen in CIVIL WAR, 2016). And we are told that Tony Stark bequeathed the classic-design Spider-Man suit to Peter Parker, replete with hi-tech gadgetry reminiscent of an Iron Man suit, including a virtual-screen readout in front of his face, 576 web-shooting options, the spider-logo as a remote drone, and a sexy computer voice (which Peter calls “Suit Lady” – serendipitously voiced by Jennifer Connelly, real-life wife to Paul Bettany, who was the voice of Tony’s computer J.A.R.V.I.S.).

Hmm, I musta missed that issue of Amazing Spider-Man…

The Iron Spider. Because what Spider-Man was missing –
was three extra waldoes…

NOTE TO NON-FANBOYS: Spider-Man was created in 1962, wearing that friendly neighborhood suit we all know and love. In 2006, in an alternate timeline, Stark does, in fact, bequeath Spider-Man a techno spider costume, dubbed the Iron Spider Armor, but its appearance is very different from the classic costume. It enabled Spider-Man to fly, and included three spider-arms from the middle of his back, called “waldoes.” That techno suit is NOT the one in this movie; the suit here resembles the classic Steve Ditko design, with snappy piping.

Still, they’ve painted themselves into a corner with the suit issue – because Spider-Man ends the movie without his suit. So in the sequel, it means Stark has to invade Peter’s space (read as movie) to bequeath another suit – or are we to believe Peter sews the Steve Ditko design himself like an underpaid Ivanka Trump employee in Thailand? Does his suit retain special powers in the sequel, because I think fans will soon tire of Super-Spidey. And in a Marvel Cinematic Universe where the Avengers exist, can any of Spider-Man’s future foes feel fatal? Just call Mr. Stark if you’re having an inordinately hard time with Kraven or Mysterio or Carnage. He’ll turn up and help – just like when he fixed the ferry – and if he can’t, I’m sure he’ll call one of his super-buds. Just don’t call Hawkeye.

Tom Holland is Peter Parker/Spider-Man, and we already like him going in. Why? Because the producers (at Marvel and Sony) were canny enough to sprinkle him into the cast of CIVIL WAR. We see fight scenes from that film, from Peter’s selfie angles. Usually, I detest home video footage, but used here in a very cool expositional way, we see that infamous airport dustup from very different angles (opening up a whole universe of questions on how it was done so seamlessly). These scenes clue us to Peter’s “one desire,” by showing us the excitement, adventure and respect he garnered fighting alongside Iron Man, and his quest to regain that sparkling moment in time; he wants to be a hero, with all the perks and camaraderie that entails. (“So, to become an Avenger, are there like, trials, or an interview?”) Also, insofar as demographic appeal, Holland is, like, totes millennial.

Not-so-hot variations on “Kneel before me, Son of Jor-El!”

Robert Downey Jr. is once again Tony Stark/Iron Man, ramrodding his masculine steel into this movie whether we like it or not. He’s Peter’s mentor and inspiration, and though Peter believes it only a matter of time before being accepted unto the Avengers’ bigtime bosom, Stark keeps him at arm’s length, like a bothersome fan. (“Can’t you just be a friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man?”)

Turns out, there’s something bigtime bosom brewing in Peter’s neighborhood (no, not the coy MILF stylings of Marisa Tomei as Aunt May) – The Vulture. Michael Keaton is Adrian Toomes, who opens the movie with his salvage company cleaning up the alien debris left by THE AVENGERS back in 2012. Tony Stark’s salvage crew appears (led by Tyne Daly in a cameo) and shuts down Toomes, leaving him out of pocket and forcing him to relinquish his salvage. A family man, trying to make ends meet, Toomes surreptitiously keeps the alien devices he’s already scavenged, reverse-engineers them (via Michael Chernus, teased as The Tinkerer) and sells them as weapons on the black market.

Boudoir décor for the romantic scavenger in you.

Toomes keeps the jewel of his efforts for himself – an iron-winged flight suit – dubbing himself the scavenger of the skies, The Vulture. “Times are changing – we need to change with them.” The second ever Spider-Man villain (appearing in The Amazing Spider-Man #2, 1963), in this age where it has become obvious that corporations are screwing the little guy, we empathize wholeheartedly with Toomes, and he doesn’t come off as inherently evil, but rather, a good man doing the wrong things for the right reasons. (Is that the name of a country song?)

Skip forward to the present, with Spider-Man performing numerous good deeds in his New York borough (including stopping a bicycle thief and helping little old ladies), and reporting them daily in hopeful phone calls to Stark’s assistant Happy Hogan (the man-shaped balloon-clown Jon Favreau), who keeps impatiently snubbing him…

Meanwhile, teen life goes on, as Peter tries to reconcile his newfound powers with school, homework, his crush (Laura Harrier as Liz) and his best buds (Jacob Batalon as Ned, who would discover Peter’s secret identity, and give Peter a comic relief sounding board). Peter’s busy-time as Spider-Man is explained away to friends as his “Stark Internship.”

When Peter comes across the alien weapons (with Donald Glover as a street thug, and both Logan Marshall-Green and Bokeem Woodbine teased as The Shocker), he crosses paths with The Vulture. And sees the chance to prove himself to “Mr. Stark” and earn the big boy pants. If only any hero could overcome impossible odds in the second act, without splitting a ferry in twain…

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING reintroduces Spider-Man as the most boy he’s ever been onscreen – Tom Holland is the youngest actor to don the webbed duds (barely 20), and he acts every inch the excitable, amazeable 15-year-old he’s meant to be. In the first scenes of Peter breezing through the crowded school yard, Spoon’s The Underdog underscores his position perfectly: a person aching to prove himself, to be a part of the “cool” gang (in school, and amongst his newfound super acquaintances).

Not only is HOMECOMING a wonderweb of thrills and excitement (through excellent directing by Jon Watts, and masterful editing by Debbie Berman and Dan Lebental), it is really very funny, not just due to Spidey’s flip one-liners, but because of the situational-comedic aspect of entangling the newly-super Peter with his decidedly mundane surroundings: Ned’s starstruck questions on what it’s like to be the Spider-Man; Hannibal Buress whipping his few seconds cameo into gold; Captain America doing PSAs!; Peter’s fawning to Iron Man, his craving for acceptance with a girl, with the public, and his socially-bizarre interaction with the force of nature, Michael Keaton.

Instead of crushing Spider-Man quickly, The Vulture talks until Spider-Man escapes.
Ironically, that’s how Batman used to escape too!

Keaton: from Batman – to Birdman – to Vulture! At this point in his career, he can read a cereal box and make it compelling. In a twist of fate, his Toomes winds up chauffeuring Peter. There is a quiet dialogue scene between the two, as each realizes who the other is. And it’s probably the best scene in the movie, for its weight, its menace, its sheer Keaton-ism.

Besides the spectacle of its set-pieces (saving the Washington Monument elevator, the Staten Island Ferry sliced in half, the clash atop the Stark plane), which rival the complexity, excitement and suspense of Doc Ock’s elevated-train battle, SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING is one of the “bravest” superhero movies yet made. It really does reflect the progressive political climate in the United States (no matter the close-minded idiocy of the orange supervillain “leading” the country). Not counting the brazen retconning of the suit, how “brave” can a summer tentpole actually be? Well…

• First – interracial! Liz is black. Since 1962, a white lesser character, now black and up front as love interest. Wait ‘til the Ku Trump Klan hears about this!
• But wait – there’s more: her father is white! A plot twist that forces Peter’s dual worlds to collide.
• Movie teases the MJ character – Mary Jane Watson, one of Peter’s great loves – as a girl of indeterminate descent (Zendaya), when she’s been a white redhead since her inception in the comics.
• A reboot WITHOUT an origin tale! (Enough with the Uncle Bens dying in the first act! Filmmakers are so sure audiences know Spider-Man’s origin, they refer to those elements offhandedly, “After what May has been through…” “What if that spider bit me too?”).
• Movie shies away from one of Spider-Man’s signature slogans, “With great power comes…” – yeah, you know the rest.
• Flash Thompson – Peter’s nemesis at school – is not your regular sweater-tied-around-neck yacht club preppie – he’s an indeterminate-genealogy brown kid (Tony Revolori), and there are no fisticuffs between the two; Flash doesn’t so much go for the jugular as the nape of the neck, with his taunts of “Penis Parker!”
• We see Spider-Man’s newbie ineptness (he makes wrong decisions; he is not used to heights; whilst web-swinging he constantly impacts objects, skims across swimming pools, falls headlong into bushes, etc.)
• The two best action scenes in the movie do not involve punching baddies so much as saving others.
• When Spider-Man is straining with all his might, he never has to take off his mask for us to understand the intensity of his effort (although he does now have re-sizing eye-platelets that clue us on his facial expressions).
• There is no angst to speak of in this version of Peter Parker; his spider-powers are almost regarded in the same way one would regard any teen going through hormonal rushes and growing into his body.
• And in the whole third act, during his climactic battle with the Vulture – Spider-Man is without his Spidey suit!

Amazing Spider-Man #33 | “The Final Chapter” (1966)
Spider-Man trapped under heavy machinery, freeing himself not just with muscles, but with the willpower to triumph. This scene is emulated in HOMECOMING, The Vulture’s machinery toppling on Peter, while he overtly exclaims his goals, “Can’t do it; too heavy— But no! Can’t give up!” etc., as if he’s in a paneled comicbook! (Consider: if Peter was trapped while wearing the techno suit, audiences would rightly ask why he isn’t activating the Heavy Machinery Lifting App.)
In the documentary, IN SEARCH OF STEVE DITKO, Neil Gaiman called it
“one of the top two or three superhero moments of all time.”

I imagined the renunciation of THE most recognizable element of Spider-Man (his suit!) would lessen the enjoyment of the film, as Peter resorts to his hand-made underoos of hoodie and goggles, but the writers (led by Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley and director Watts) had to divest Peter of Stark’s multi-purpose threads, in order to arrive at one of the most iconic redemption scenes in Spider-Man history…

After Peter screws up an undercover sting, he begs Stark not to take back the suit, “I’m nothing without the suit!” and Stark recounts the lesson he learned in IRON MAN 3: “If you’re nothing without the suit, then you don’t deserve it.” Just like James Cameron divested the TERMINATOR of its outer flesh in the third act, to show us that under the exoskeleton of the man, there pumped the pistons of a machine, Spidey’s filmmakers prove that under the exoskeleton of the spider-suit machine, there beats the heart of a hero.

Thus, when the object of his desire is offered to him in the end – membership in the club of his dreams – he finds he doesn’t need it anymore… Like all Spider-Man films before it, SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING concludes with the boy realizing what it takes to be the spider man: It’s not needing to be Tony Stark’s bottom bitch.

END