Evan Peters and Barhad Abdi elevate glib, overdone 'The Pirates of Somalia'

Review: Evan Peters and Barhad Abdi elevate glib, overdone ‘The Pirates of Somalia’

By Michael Rechtshaffen

Dec. 8, 2017 12 AM PT

Serving as something of a flipside to 2013’s Tom Hanks-starring “Captain Phillips,” Brian Buckley’s “The Pirates of Somalia,” based on a memoir by Jay Bahadur, finds itself navigating some choppy tonal waters prior to emerging as an engagingly performed take on recent world events.

Bahadur’s seemingly improbable story begins in 2008, when the University of Toronto grad (appealingly played by Evan Peters) is off to a slow start realizing his dream of becoming the next Woodward and/or Bernstein from the lowly vantage point of his parents’ (Melanie Griffith and Alok Tewari) basement.

But following a chance encounter with another journalistic idol (Al Pacino), Bahadur perseveres and soon finds himself well over his head in Somalia at the invitation of the president, where he spends the next six months learning the ropes with the help of a local translator/fixer (Barkhad Abdi).

Rather than trusting the many quirks already inherent in Bahadur’s surreal Somalian adventure (filmed in South Africa) writer-director Buckley deems it necessary to constantly inject the proceedings with needless embellishments including glib voice-overs, fantasy sequences and animation.

Fortunately the genuine rapport between Peters, a regular fixture on “American Horror Story,” and the magnetic Abdi, who received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a Somali pirate captain in the “Captain Phillips” film, mainly succeeds in keeping it all on an even keel.

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