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Phillips, screwed driver

Director Paul Greengrass has a lot of movies under his belt. He's proven that he can handle tense international thrillers ("The Bourne Supremacy") with an even hand, and he's treated contemporary historical material ("United 93") with respectful restraint while still providing for an emotionally engaging viewing experience. "Captain Phillips", which relates dramatic true story of a cargo ship captain held hostage by Somali pirates, should be right in Mr. Greengrass's wheelhouse. So why doesn't it work?

One suspects that the script, from writer Billy Ray - who also has a track record with diverse genres ("The Hunger Games", "Shattered Glass") and should have been able to handle this material with ease - is part of the issue. The trouble begins early on, when we meet Captain Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) as he leaves his Vermont home for eastern Africa, where he will pilot a cargo ship around the Horn of Africa - and dangerously close to pirate-infested waters off the coast of Somalia. Captain Phillips's parting conversation with his wife - played by an unrecognizable Catherine Keener ("Being John Malkovich") - is meant to provide insight into his character and motivations, but all we get is that they have a couple of kids, and his line of work makes him nervous. The scene is disappointingly choppy, failing to provide the fundamental building blocks of the story it's setting out to tell, and it proves to be an unfortunate blueprint for the rest of the film.

The structural setup of "Captain Phillips" is initially effective, as we meet both the crew of cargo ship Maersk Alabama, and the Somali men who will eventually hijack her. Crew work and piracy are presented as comparable trades: each is a way to make a living, with bosses to answer to and a bottom line to be maintained. We see Captain Phillips and his first mate, Shane Murphy (Michael Chernus, "The Bourne Legacy"), walk through preparations prior to launch. They even undertake some drills, meant to ready the crew in the event of a pirate attack. Meanwhile the Somalis congregate at the water's edge, vying for positions on teams that will take to the sea in search of ships to capture. What's interesting here is the contrast in scope. We see the vastness of the international shipping operation, with its endless rows of massive cargo containers piled up on the dock waiting to be loaded onto huge vessels. We see the hulking, seemingly impenetrable Maersk Alabama, looking like a welded iron skyscraper. Then we see a seaside Somali village, motorized flatboats, and agitated men grouped like migrant workers angling for a day's pay. As the film cuts back and forth between the two settings it's difficult to imagine that piracy is any kind of a concern; how could a handful of men in a couple of skiffs even catch up to, never mind hope to capture, such a behemoth as the Alabama?

The film does a good job answering this question; we learn exactly how four men with low-tech resources are ultimately able to take over a modern cargo ship. And it's interesting to see the kinds of defenses that Captain Phillips and his crew employ before they're boarded and have to go into lockdown mode. But there's a strange sense of missing context, and without that context we're also missing a thorough understanding of why events unfolded the way they did, and exactly what's at stake for everyone involved. Why are commercial cargo ships required to travel without any defensive weapons? There's likely a good reason, but we never hear it, so the predicament of the Maersk Alabama feels strangely contrived, even irresponsible. What has happened to other ships and crews taken by pirates? Exactly what kind of threat is the crew under? Knowing any of this would provide an emotional component to the conflict. Its absence requires us to accept that the situation is generally bad, but we don't know precisely how or why so it's difficult to care too much about anyone's plight. This feels like lazy filmmaking: relying on the audience's expected knowledge of a particular incident or subject instead of doing the work to bring viewers up to speed and effectively set up the story.

With some of the crew in hiding and others being held by the pirates, "Captain Phillips" shifts gears from a battle-at-sea story to a cat-and-mouse game, as the Somalis search the ship and the crew tries their best not to be discovered. But this feels oddly half-baked, and it's abandoned before it really goes anywhere. The story takes off in yet another direction when the Somalis decide that their best hope of a financial reward lies not in taking the ship, but in taking the captain. Soon we're cutting back and forth from the small, cramped escape vessel housing the pirates and their hostage, to a SEAL team that's been called in because "... the White House is very concerned..." Like so many other moments in the film, the political angle is dropped in suddenly and without context, and the scenes with military personnel scrambling to implement a rescue wind up feeling like they were filmed for an entirely different movie.

Obviously there are limitations in crafting nonfiction material into a feature film, and the "Captain Phillips" screenwriter could only take so much liberty with plot points and story beats. However, Mr. Greengrass's direction is also strangely lacking here, as scene after scene is presented at the same pitch: full-on yelling. This approach conveys a probably quite accurate sense of chaos, but it's an exhausting experience, and viewers will find themselves working overtime to figure out what's going on story-wise. Writers are always being advised, "show, don't tell", and it's probable that filmmakers receive that same advice, but Mr. Greengrass would have been wise to ease up a bit on the "show" in favor of some "tell". By the time poor Captain Phillips winds up in the ocean at night - saying why would be a spoiler - establishing shots have long since been abandoned, and the viewer is really only seeing full-screen shots of grey water.

Despite the uneven storytelling, and what feels like an unnecessarily long running time, "Captain Phillips" does boast some strong performances. Tom Hanks brings his now-classic everyman likeability to the lead role, though his accent, an unwieldy melange of Downeast and Dorchester, manages to ping all over New England like a triangulating cell signal. However, his work in the last five minutes of the film is surprisingly powerful, even overwhelming; it's a pity his performance isn't anchoring a stronger film. But the real find here is neophyte actor Barkhad Abdi, who plays Muse, the ruthlessly focused pirate leader. Mr. Abdi is charismatic and holds his own in intense scenes with Mr. Hanks. He also finds moments of emotional depth that seem to be taking place between the lines, and he's always interesting to watch. In the end, the launch of Mr. Abdi's acting career may turn out to be the most interesting part of "Captain Phillips".