Kristin Reviews All Is Lost and Captain Phillips
In 12 Years a Slave, a free black man suffers the horrors of slavery for over two hours. In Captain Phillips, a sea captain is taken hostage by Somali pirates and suffers their abuse and threats for over two hours. And in All Is Lost, an unnamed sailor suffers the perils that come with being lost at sea in a damaged vessel for what feels like over two hours.
All three movies are essentially explorations of helplessness. I have already discussed 12 Years a Slave in a previous review, so I’ll focus here on the two that take place at sea.
Captain Phillips and the unnamed yachtsman in All Is Lost are both established as excellent captains of their respective vessels. In Captain Phillips, Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) has an opportunity to demonstrate his leadership and ship-operating skills prior to and during the initial pirate attack. Before all becomes lost, the main character in All Is Lost (Robert Redford) expertly handles the various controls of his sailboat and skillfully makes repairs following a collision with a shipping container that looks as if it fell off Captain Phillips’s ship. In theory this confidence and competence should give us a little insight into who these men are and how they’re likely to face the hopeless circumstances that we know are coming.
It doesn’t take much for Tom Hanks as Phillips to win our admiration and, later, our sympathy. The script gives him multiple opportunities to demonstrate all the reasons we should relate to and care about him. Plus, he’s Tom Hanks, who is so charming and affable that it’s probably impossible not to like him. So, when the feces hits the fan in the form of a group of desperate pirates, we care; we want to see him survive his ordeal; we tensely wait on the edges of our seats for him to be rescued. Nobody wants to see Tom Hanks yelled at and beaten (that’s not a spoiler, unless you imagine pirates typically invite their captives to tea), so a built-in bond is formed with the main character.
One of the more impressive things about the script (written by Billy Ray based upon the book, Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS, and Dangerous Days at Sea by Richard Phillips and Stephan Talty) is that it takes the time to give us some insight into the pirates as well. While they’re still pirates, and they’re still hurting our beloved Tom Hanks, they are also people with their own aspirations and senses of humor and struggles back home. The efforts to humanize the pirate characters, along with brilliant performances by the young actors selected to play them, adds a depth to the film that separates it from the typical good guys vs. bad guys epic.
I didn’t know how the movie was going to end (my aunt remembered the event in the news, so she found the film less suspenseful than I did), so I was engaged in the story. But, whether it was because the script needed trimming or because I just really wanted Tom Hanks to be okay, I got to the point where I was ready for the film to be over almost half an hour before it actually ended. And perhaps that’s what the filmmakers were going for – Phillips undoubtedly felt the ordeal lasted way too long himself. Still, that weariness interfered with my ability to thoroughly enjoy the movie. Between the brilliant performances, direction, and cinematography, the film put me in a state of emotional discord that was incredibly uncomfortable; even as I marveled at the technical accomplishments, I wanted that sensation to end.
I will say, though, that both Hanks and Barkhad Abdi, the Somali actor who played the leader of the pirate group, should (and undoubtedly will) be nominated for acting awards. In fact, Hanks delivered one particular scene (no spoilers) so perfectly that he absolutely blew me away. Frankly, I would argue that neither of his Oscar-winning performances was as impressive as his performance in this scene. I’m not saying he should win a third Oscar for a single scene, but I think if Academy members had known he had this in him, they might have waited to bestow one of the earlier honors upon him.
In All Is Lost, Robert Redford’s character has no pirates or other characters to battle. He just has the sea and the weather to contend with. It’s the “man vs. nature” scenario we all learned about in our middle school literature classes. The problem is, because there are no other people for the character to interact with, we don’t know a damn thing about him. Aside from the fact that he knows a lot about his sailboat and seems pretty smart, we don’t know who he is, why he’s out in the middle of nowhere on a boat, where he’s going, what he’ll do when he gets there - nothing. Obviously, based on numerous rave reviews, that was okay with a lot of critics. Me? I needed to know more. I didn’t even know if I liked this guy.
My other problem was that much of what the character did in trying to save his boat and his life was technical sailboat stuff that I didn’t understand. I knew he was rushing around doing sail-y things for a reason, but I often felt a little lost without a frame of reference to help me follow his choices. Consequently, the movie felt empty to me, and I felt nothing but relief that it was over when the credits finally started to roll.
The verdict: both films felt like they were too long, but I found Captain Phillips more compelling because it had characters I could relate to and sympathize with.
-Kristin
1.8.2014
All three movies are essentially explorations of helplessness. I have already discussed 12 Years a Slave in a previous review, so I’ll focus here on the two that take place at sea.
Captain Phillips and the unnamed yachtsman in All Is Lost are both established as excellent captains of their respective vessels. In Captain Phillips, Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) has an opportunity to demonstrate his leadership and ship-operating skills prior to and during the initial pirate attack. Before all becomes lost, the main character in All Is Lost (Robert Redford) expertly handles the various controls of his sailboat and skillfully makes repairs following a collision with a shipping container that looks as if it fell off Captain Phillips’s ship. In theory this confidence and competence should give us a little insight into who these men are and how they’re likely to face the hopeless circumstances that we know are coming.
It doesn’t take much for Tom Hanks as Phillips to win our admiration and, later, our sympathy. The script gives him multiple opportunities to demonstrate all the reasons we should relate to and care about him. Plus, he’s Tom Hanks, who is so charming and affable that it’s probably impossible not to like him. So, when the feces hits the fan in the form of a group of desperate pirates, we care; we want to see him survive his ordeal; we tensely wait on the edges of our seats for him to be rescued. Nobody wants to see Tom Hanks yelled at and beaten (that’s not a spoiler, unless you imagine pirates typically invite their captives to tea), so a built-in bond is formed with the main character.
One of the more impressive things about the script (written by Billy Ray based upon the book, Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS, and Dangerous Days at Sea by Richard Phillips and Stephan Talty) is that it takes the time to give us some insight into the pirates as well. While they’re still pirates, and they’re still hurting our beloved Tom Hanks, they are also people with their own aspirations and senses of humor and struggles back home. The efforts to humanize the pirate characters, along with brilliant performances by the young actors selected to play them, adds a depth to the film that separates it from the typical good guys vs. bad guys epic.
I didn’t know how the movie was going to end (my aunt remembered the event in the news, so she found the film less suspenseful than I did), so I was engaged in the story. But, whether it was because the script needed trimming or because I just really wanted Tom Hanks to be okay, I got to the point where I was ready for the film to be over almost half an hour before it actually ended. And perhaps that’s what the filmmakers were going for – Phillips undoubtedly felt the ordeal lasted way too long himself. Still, that weariness interfered with my ability to thoroughly enjoy the movie. Between the brilliant performances, direction, and cinematography, the film put me in a state of emotional discord that was incredibly uncomfortable; even as I marveled at the technical accomplishments, I wanted that sensation to end.
I will say, though, that both Hanks and Barkhad Abdi, the Somali actor who played the leader of the pirate group, should (and undoubtedly will) be nominated for acting awards. In fact, Hanks delivered one particular scene (no spoilers) so perfectly that he absolutely blew me away. Frankly, I would argue that neither of his Oscar-winning performances was as impressive as his performance in this scene. I’m not saying he should win a third Oscar for a single scene, but I think if Academy members had known he had this in him, they might have waited to bestow one of the earlier honors upon him.
In All Is Lost, Robert Redford’s character has no pirates or other characters to battle. He just has the sea and the weather to contend with. It’s the “man vs. nature” scenario we all learned about in our middle school literature classes. The problem is, because there are no other people for the character to interact with, we don’t know a damn thing about him. Aside from the fact that he knows a lot about his sailboat and seems pretty smart, we don’t know who he is, why he’s out in the middle of nowhere on a boat, where he’s going, what he’ll do when he gets there - nothing. Obviously, based on numerous rave reviews, that was okay with a lot of critics. Me? I needed to know more. I didn’t even know if I liked this guy.
My other problem was that much of what the character did in trying to save his boat and his life was technical sailboat stuff that I didn’t understand. I knew he was rushing around doing sail-y things for a reason, but I often felt a little lost without a frame of reference to help me follow his choices. Consequently, the movie felt empty to me, and I felt nothing but relief that it was over when the credits finally started to roll.
The verdict: both films felt like they were too long, but I found Captain Phillips more compelling because it had characters I could relate to and sympathize with.
-Kristin
1.8.2014
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