Kenneth Turan recommends: ‘Captain Phillips’
Before the tsunami of post-Thanksgiving releases sweeps you away, take a moment and catch up to one of the best films of the year, the Paul Greengrass-directed, Tom Hanks-starring “Captain Phillips,” a film that manages to combine the dynamics of human behavior under stress with an affinity for the nuts and bolts of realistic action.
The story of the six days that Richard Phillips, captain of the cargo ship Maersk Alabama, spent in April of 2009 first trying to avoid a gang of Somali pirates and then as their restive captive, “Captain Phillips” does an impeccable job of creating and tightening the narrative screws.
The result is so propulsive that you might find yourself looking at your watch not out of boredom but because you’re not sure how much more tension you can stand.
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