Tom Hanks does his finest work ever in Paul Greengrass’ gripping docu-drama “Captain Phillips’’ — brilliantly playing Richard Phillips, the abducted veteran skipper of the Maersk Alabama, held hostage for four days in 2009 by armed Somali hijackers after he foiled their determined attempt to capture his enormous cargo ship.
The story, which made international headlines, is brought to vivid life by Greengrass, who stages the complex but clearly depicted action on an actual cargo ship as well as on real Navy vessels, including one that was involved in the rescue mission.
The hijackers are a quartet of poor Somali fishermen who don’t know each other before they are recruited onshore, and frequently bicker as things go increasingly wrong. Muse (Barkhad Abdi) is the intense leader, who struggles to make a team of the hotheaded Najee (Faysal Ahmed), terrified navigator Elmi (Mahat M. Ali) and barefoot teenager Bilal (Barkhad Abdirahman), who clearly has no idea what he’s gotten himself into.
Phillips, helming a Norfolk, Va.-based ship, is transporting hundreds of cargo containers from Oman to Kenya and conducting an anti-piracy drill when he spots a couple of suspicious skiffs approaching from the Somali coast. Unarmed (per international maritime regulations at the time), Phillips orders whatever evasive measures are possible for his huge and slow-moving vessel, which uses water cannons to try to swamp the interlopers.
One of the skiffs is scared off, but another with this desperate quartet manages to get close enough to hook on a ladder in the roiling surf and board. Phillips offers $30,000 in cash, but it isn’t enough to satisfy Muse, who conducts a search for the hidden crew — whom the quick-thinking Phillips has ordered to shut down the engines.
With the US Navy approaching and two of their number injured, the hijackers (who speak limited English) grab Phillips and take off in a hot and claustrophobic motorized lifeboat, with fantasies of ransoming the captain — whom Muse calls “Irish’’ — for millions.
Meanwhile, a team of negotiators and Navy SEALs has been assembled to rescue the very clever Phillips, who at one point makes a desperate escape attempt under cover of pitch-black night.
Though the outcome is very well known, there are plenty of white-knuckle thrills in this very detailed retelling of this real-life story (Billy Ray’s screenplay is based on a memoir co-written by Phillips), which takes place largely in very close quarters as well as on the open sea.
Aside from Hanks (and Catherine Keener, seen briefly in the opening scene as Phillips’ concerned wife), the cast consists of largely unfamiliar faces, including powerful and low-profile character actors playing the principal Navy personnel (alongside actual sailors).
Though this apolitical film in no way condones piracy, Greengrass (who directed the superb “United 93’’) elicits a measure of sympathy for the naively overmatched Somali hijackers, who fear their employer as much as their target, drawing nuanced performances from a quartet of inexperienced actors.
It falls to Hanks and his movie-star presence to anchor this ambitious enterprise, and he does some of his most impressive acting without saying a word. I watched, transfixed, as Phillips constantly surveys his uneasy captors and calculates his strategies, and his rapidly dwindling chances of survival.
Just when I thought he couldn’t get any better, Hanks tops himself in a devastating final sequence in which we see a man who is unable to process all that he’s been through — though we’re told Phillips was back on the job a year later.
“Captain Phillips’’ is one of the year’s finest films. Don’t miss it.