Captain Phillips (2013)

For as many times as Tom Hanks has faced life threatening danger on screen its remarkable that his performances can still seem fresh, emotionally honest and earned. Captain Phillips, done in the signature realist style its director Paul Greengrass brings to his true story films, tells the tale of Richard Phillips, the American commercial freighter captain taken hostage by Somali pirates in early 2009. I remember when this story happened, it was the first real 'foreign policy crises' of the new Obama administration, which was kind of funny because its African pirates, the kind of thing that the Adams and Jefferson administrations had to worry about 200 years earlier. I remember very few details about the events so it was nice going into the film largely unawares. This is one of those movies where everything is left on the screen, so there is not a lot to analyze, its very straight forward and its very good. A gripping watch. ****