Captain Philips Zero To Hero?

Captain Philips is a thrilling movie about a Cargo ship hijacked by Somali pirates, and the heroics of the leader of the ship captain Philips.

The movie is supposed to be based on the true story of the Captain Philips kidnapping in 2009, and Tom Hanks does a good job of telling the heroic story of the events that happened during that time. But skipped details falsely portrayed Captain Philips as a hero.  This is unfortunate, as it takes way from the reality of what happened.

In reality, Captain Philips was the damsel in distress; his crew was actually trying to save him.  The crew had the leader of the pirates in another part of the ship.

The chief engineer, Mike Perry, made a deal with the pirates, stating if they would return Captain Philips, he would give them their leader.

Captain Philips was saved by his crewmen’s quick thinking and was on his way towards his ship. When he reached the ship, he told his crew to let the Somali leader be traded back first.  The Somali pirates took advantage of the and kept Captain Philips.

It bothered me that they left out these details and made Captain Philips out to be the hero of the story, which he clearly wasn’t.

The script for the Somali pirates was mostly improvised, and the movie doesn’t even give the viewers the reason the pirates wanted that particular ship for ransom.

I would have liked to see more of a storyline include the crew on the ship. I also wanted to know how the crew was feeling and how they were affected, but the movie didn’t give me that.

The movie was good, thrilling and suspenseful, even though I already knew how it would end. I would not recommend Captain Philips for someone who was doing a research project on the event, but I would recommend it to someone wanting to see a good movie.