If you go to a movie to see the “real and untold story” and expect to see a genuine portrayal of events, you might be disappointed by the new feature film, Captain Phillips, starring Tom Hanks.
Hanks’ politics are not mine, but he does a good job of acting in a movie based on a book about the incident (possibly self-serving) that was written by Richard Phillips, the subject of a hostage situation on the high seas in 2009.
If the crew had half a dozen rifles between them, they could have stopped the hijacking from happening in the first place but merchant ships chose to travel through pirate infested waters unarmed. That is the message that people might decide to take away from the film. It’s not the message that Hollywood decided to send. Native savages in fishing boats took a number of ships in the waters off Somalia and in some cases, made millions in ransom. The way to stop that from happening is to kill the natives turned pirate.
Of the four pirates that took the Maersk Alabama on April 19, 2009, three died by head-shots administered by SEALs on the Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) on the USS Boxer and one was captured and subsequently sentenced to 33 years on prison in the US. 
(KSDK.COM) The new Tom hanks movie is getting rave reviews, but also taking some heat. Captain Phillips tells the real-life story of the Maersk Alabama, a ship hijacked by Somali pirates in 2009. 
The captain was taken hostage and later hailed as a hero. Now, some of the crew members are speaking out, saying the movie gets it all wrong…Back in 2010, Perry told CNN he and most of the crew couldn’t believe the story being painted about their captain, Captain Richard Phillips: that he had given himself up in exchange for the safety of his crew. Left out of the entire story, says Perry, is the captain’s recklessness that steered the Maersk Alabama into pirate-infested waters.
All in all, I enjoyed the film and give it an 8 out of a possible 10, which amounts to a recommendation to see the movie.

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6 COMMENTS

  1. A Captain navigating known pirate infested waters allows four untrained mooks to take a ship and its crew hostage …. nothing heroic there. The man needs to have his licensed revoked. Better yet, he should be forced to eat it.

  3. NOTHING Hollywierd puts out is real, or even close… And there is the real story of the reason Maresk Alabama was taken, which differs greatly from the 'narrative' in Phillip's book… And the SEALS did get the job done in the end, in spite of Hillary's best efforts to stop them.

  4. The natives could have been thwarted by the crew, but they weren't. Phillips is a narcissist. There was push-back from the White House (both Barack and Hillary) until the operation went well, then they owned it.

  5. I get it that Hollywood gets it wrong – but wouldn't it been a better movie (I have not seen it) if there were little hints of Phillips's true actions (taking the short cut, lying about it) and his giving up while the crew hid, and then planned to fight back (taking one hostage?). Hanks could have played that little twist just subtle enough to make people wonder…

    BTW – if you have not heard it: Brian Regan on Pirates

  6. I just listened to the Brian Regan piece – funny.

    I don't know why Hollywood people do or don't do things. In the case of the movie, it was an ok movie – simply taken on its face, not taking into account any sense of really what happened. I wasn't going to go see the movie for that reason – thin I did.

    I found myself irritated that nobody was able to shoot back when the pirates (natives in an open fishing boat) were shooting and pulling along side with a boarding ladder. The open boat, bobbing wildly, was not a good shooting platform. The stable Maersk Alabama, on the other hand was stable and you could have killed all of the pirates without much effort. Such is my mindset. Obviously, I'm not very "progressive" because I wouldn't have cared that a few pirates ended up feeding the sharks.

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