Posts tagged Paul Greengrass
“Captain Phillips” Goes from Bad to Worse
Oct 19th
“From Bad to Worse”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Captain Phillips is based on the true story of an American cargo ship that was hijacked by Somali pirates in 2009 in an attempt to hold it for ransom for millions of dollars.
Tom Hanks plays the seasoned captain of the ship, who had a new crew of 20 men he was trying to get into shape.
Ironically, when his wife is driving him to the airport from their home in Vermont at the beginning of this trip, she says, “You’d think these trips would get easier, but they’re not.”
We also see some background of the Somali pirates on shore, too, as their warlord leaders berate them to get out on the water where they should be earning money.
The cargo ship was the Maersk Alabama, and knowing the dangerous waters they are in, Captain Phillips has practice drills for the crew and puts them all on double shifts.
Captain Phillips’ job is to move the cargo as fast as possible, but his crew members are not all happy with what they are doing and where they are going.
The Somali pirates aren’t all happy, either, and we see them fighting among themselves as they prepare to board the ship, which four armed pirates manage to do.
When Captain Phillips realizes that the ship will be boarded, he orders most of the crew to hide below decks until help arrives, stop the ship from moving, and then he tells the leader of the Somalis that the ship is broken and he doesn’t know where his crew is.
The leader of the pirates is called Muse, and he tells Captain Phillips, “Look at me. I’m the captain now.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy sends a ship to take care of the situation, and Captain Phillips offers to give Muse the $30,000 he has in the safe, but Muse believes he can earn millions.
So, when the situation goes from the proverbial bad to worse, the pirates trick Captain Phillips to get into the covered lifeboat with them, so that they can hold him hostage and improve their bargaining position.
The pirates are still fighting among themselves, and Captain Phillips tries to argue with Muse to help his own situation, because now the pirates are trying to get back to Somalia.
Captain Phillips is overrated, overlong, and underedited.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Captain Phillips – Movie Trailer
Oct 14th
Captain Phillips is a multi-layered examination of the 2009 hijacking of the U.S. container ship Maersk Alabama by a crew of Somali pirates. It is – through director Paul Greengrass’s distinctive lens – simultaneously a pulse-pounding thriller, and a complex portrait of the myriad effects of globalization. The film focuses on the relationship between the Alabama’s commanding officer, Captain Richard Phillips (two time Academy Award (R)-winner Tom Hanks), and the Somali pirate captain, Muse (Barkhad Abdi), who takes him hostage. Phillips and Muse are set on an unstoppable collision course when Muse and his crew target Phillips’ unarmed ship; in the ensuing standoff, 145 miles off the Somali coast, both men will find themselves at the mercy of forces beyond their control. The film is directed by Academy Award (R) nominee Paul Greengrass, from a screenplay by Billy Ray based upon the book, A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea, by Richard Phillips with Stephan Talty.
“Green Zone” Simple Story with Complex Overtones
Mar 18th
Simple Story with Complex Overtones
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
GREEN ZONE is the third collaboration of director Paul Greengrass and actor Matt Damon, the first two being the 2004 THE BOURNE SUPREMACY and the 2007 THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, and as TIME magazine put it, this movie essentially parachutes “their franchise’s hero, Jason Bourne, into the toxic reality of Iraq.”
This time, however, Damon plays U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, and his assignment right after the war in Iraq began is to lead his team of soldiers to find the weapons of mass destruction that were the cause of the war in the first place.
So, we see Chief Miller and his team roll up to a site in Baghdad that is a disaster, full of Iraqi looters and even an Iraqi sniper in the area.
Miller finds the U.S. officer in charge and tells him, “Intel says we’ve got live chemical agents in this site!”
After they take out the sniper, they go into the building and find . . . nothing. No chemical agents, no weapons of mass destruction, nothing, nada, zip, zilch!
This is not the first time, either. Chief Miller and his team hit another site the week before that was supposedly based on good intelligence, but the site turned out to be nothing more than a toilet factory.
Then we meet Clark Poundstone, played by Greg Kinnear. Poundstone is from Pentagon Special Intelligence, and he swears by the intelligence they have been receiving from an Iraqi source with the code name “Magellan.”
In the meantime, Miller encounters an Iraqi civilian who tells him about a private meeting taking place with high-value Iraqis. They call the man “Freddy,” and he leads them to the house where, sure enough, one of Saddam Hussein’s high-level generals, named Al-Rawi, is at the meeting, but he escapes after a firefight.
At this point other American troops come onto the scene, and a fight breaks out between them and Miller’s team over a black book that was obtained at the house.
There is the suspicion that General Al-Rawi is actually Magellan and was intentionally feeding the Americans false information, which Poundstone might even have known was false.
At this point, the movie turns into one long complicated chase that is awfully confusing about who is who and what is going on.
GREEN ZONE is a simple story with complex overtones.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
