Captain Phillips (2013)
Captain Phillips is a 2013 American biographical action thriller film directed by Paul Greengrass. Based on the 2009 Maersk Alabama hijacking, the film tells the story of the eponymous Captain Richard Phillips, a merchant mariner who was taken hostage by Somali pirates. It stars Tom Hanks as Phillips, alongside Barkhad Abdi as pirate leader Abduwali Muse. The screenplay by Billy Ray is based on Phillips’s 2010 book A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea, which Phillips co-wrote with Stephan Talty. Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti and Michael De Luca served as producers on the project. It premiered at the 2013 New York Film Festival, and was theatrically released on October 11, 2013. The film emerged as a critical and commercial success, receiving positive reviews from critics and grossing $220 million against a budget of $55 million. Captain Phillips received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Abdi.
Plot.
Richard Phillips takes command of MV Maersk Alabama, an unarmed container vessel from the Port of Salalah in Oman, with orders to sail through the Guardafui Channel to Mombasa, Kenya. Wary of pirate activity off the coast of the Horn of Africa, he and First Officer Shane Murphy order strict security precautions on the vessel and carry out a practice drill. During the drill, the captain notices that the vessel is being followed by Somali pirates in two skiffs, and Phillips calls for help. Knowing that the pirates are listening to radio traffic, he pretends to call a warship, requesting immediate air support. One skiff turns around in response, and the other – crewed by four heavily armed pirates led by Abduwali Muse – loses engine power trying to steer through Maersk Alabama’s wake.RELATED:
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The next day, Muse’s skiff, now fitted with two outboard engines, returns with the same four pirates aboard. Despite valiant efforts of Phillips and his crew, the pirates secure their ladder to the Maersk Alabama. As they board, Phillips tells the crew to hide in the engine room, just before the pirates storm the bridge and hold Phillips and the other crew members at gunpoint. Phillips offers Muse the $30,000 in the ship’s safe, but Muse’s orders are to ransom the ship and crew in exchange for millions of dollars of insurance money from the shipping company. While they search the ship, Shane sees that the youngest pirate Bilal does not have
sandals and tells the crew to line the engine room hallway with broken glass. Chief Engineer Mike Perry deactivates the power to the ship, plunging the lower decks into darkness. Bilal cuts his feet when they reach the engine room, and Muse continues to search alone. The crew members ambush Muse, holding him at knifepoint, and arrange to release him and the other pirates into a lifeboat. However, Muse’s right-hand man Nour Najee refuses to board the lifeboat with Muse unless Phillips goes with them. Once all are on the lifeboat, Najee attacks Phillips, forcing him into the vessel before launching the boat with all five of them on b
Development.
Sony Pictures optioned the film rights shortly after the publication of Richard Phillips’s memoir A Captain’s Duty in 2010. In March 2011, actor Tom Hanks attached himself to the project after reading a draft of the screenplay by Billy Ray. Director Paul Greengrass was offered the helm of the untitled film adaptation during the following June. A worldwide search subsequently began to find the film’s supporting Somali cast. From this search, Barkhad Abdi, Barkhad Abdirahman, Faysal Ahmed, and Mahat M. Ali were chosen from among more than 700 participants at a 2011 casting call at the Brian Coyle Community Center in Cedar-Riverside, Minneapolis. The four actors were selected, according to search casting director Debbie DeLisi, because they were “the chosen ones, that anointed group that stuck out.”
Filming.
Principal photography for Captain Phillips began on March 26, 2012. Filming took place off the coast of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea. Nine weeks were spent filming aboard Alexander Maersk, a container ship identical to Maersk Alabama. The container vessel was chartered on commercial terms with Maersk Line. USS Truxtun, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and sister ship of USS Bainbridge, served as a set piece in the film.