Film Review: Captain Phillips

Captain Phillips. Rated M (mature themes and violence). 134 minutes. Directed by Paul Greengrass. Screenplay by Billy Ray, based on A Captain's Duty by Richard Phillips.

Verdict: It might have been wiser to sail with the pack.

If it’s light and breezy distraction you’re after, then bypass this uptight and intense thriller about cargo ship Captain Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) and his unfortunate crew as they battle for survival against a band of marauding Somalian pirates, led by the rather optimistically named Muse (Barkhad Abdi).

Phillips’s autobiographical account is embroiled in controversy, with many of the crew involved in legal action against the ship’s owner – the Maersk Line – for what they claim was dereliction of duty. The only nod to Phillips’ alleged lapse of judgment is the pirates discovering his ship is charting a course closer to the Somalian coastline than the rest of the vessels all sailing the same route – a fact that apparently informed their decision to attack it.

Anyone involved in primary industry knows the most direct trade route is the most desirable, and with faith in the water cannons onboard used to sink rickety old pirate boats, some token security drills and rusty old padlocks, Phillips takes his chances. Whether you blame him will depend on how much you end up admiring the tenacity of the opportunistic Somalians, for who Ray’s (The Hunger Games, Flightplan) screenplay provides millions of dollars worth of motivation.

Greengrass’s (Green Zone, The Bourne Ultimatum, United 93, The Bourne Supremacy) and cinematographer Barry Ackroyd’s (Green Zone, The Hurt Locker, United 93) hand-held camera in confined spaces technique comes to the fore early and never lets up. The result is a powerful, if relentless, study of motivation, brilliantly edited by Christopher Rouse (Green Zone, The Bourne Ultimatum, United 93, The Bourne Supremacy).

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Rated PG (mild themes and coarse language). 129 minutes. Directed by Stephen Daldry. Screenplay by Eric Roth. Based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer.

Verdict: Lovers of great drama will be richly-rewarded by this compelling exploration of grief, hope and the power of imagination.

One of the major issues involved with making a film about the events of September 11 is the fact that the attacks on New York’s World Trade Center were so widely broadcast – and witnessed by people around the world – in real time. Most of us remember where we were and how we felt – and the analogy at the time (an attempt, perhaps, to make sense of the incomprehensible horror), was that it was like watching a movie.

The challenge, then, for filmmakers taking on “the worst day” is as simple as it is complicated: what are you going to tell us about this preposterous act of terrorism against a country’s civilians that we haven’t already been told? How, ten years later, are you going to further illuminate the events and/or the lasting legacy of what happened on September 11?

In memoriam: DVD Review: United 93

My introduction to United Airlines Flight 93 was in the early hours of September 12, 2001. Not owning a television, I was following the hypnotic spectacle on the internet. ('September 11' would later be acknowledged as being the first major international event to have been communicated to the world in real time via the 'net.) I was plugged in to a large number of websites - one of which belonged to United Airlines. At some point during the fiasco, there was a stark, simple message on the company's homepage: "United Airlines regret to announce that we appear to have lost another aircraft." (United Airlines Flight 175, the second plane hijacked, had already been flown into the World Trade Center's South Tower.)

My introduction to the Paul Greengrass film - United 93 - was as a result of the, then, Sydney Film Festival Artistic Director Lynden Barber's decision to include it in his program for the 2006 festival. I was the Events Manager for Barber's final festival and I had taken the opportunity to sneak in to the State Theatre to watch this film. About 15 minutes into it, my mobile phone, silently, announced that I was needed somewhere. We had a huge number of Festival Sponsor post-screening functions immediately following the film - and there was corporate sponsorship banner positioning to be attended to.

The post-United 93 screening functions were, as you might imagine, dire affairs. Ghostly white and subdued, corporate Sydney wandered dazed and undone into their VIP zones - stunned by what they had witnessed. The State Theatre had just had a new 'rock concert' sound rig installed ... and United 93's momentous, layered soundtrack (Martin Cantwell's Sound Editing and John Powell's Original Score) gave it a paint-and-wall-paper stripping run for its money.

****

One of Greengrass's masterstrokes is the casting. John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) once said that "casting is 65 percent of directing", and in the case of United 93 the casting is a significant aspect of the work's cinematic torque. The flight crew (pilots and cabin attendants) are all played by real crew - some of whom work for United Airlines. On the ground, the Civilian and US Military Air Traffic Controllers are played by real air traffic controllers – and in some cases, the people who were actually working on the morning of September 11. The passengers are played by relative unknowns, and it is this choice that ensures the film demands an immediate and instinctive respect. There is no "Acting" going on. Yes, there is knowledge and technique … there is commitment and passion … but ultimately, it is the anonymity of these actors that powers their presence in this work in precious and commanding ways. Many Directors and Casting Directors choose this casting path to walk – but very few have succeeded in matching the power of the unreservedly adventurous and uncluttered energy with the material that Greengrass manages to inspire in this work and from his brilliant cast.

The editing by Clare Douglas, Richard Pearson and Christopher Rouse is astonishing and entirely worthy of their Oscar™ nomination (they lost to Thelma Schoonmaker's work on Martin Scorsese's The Departed). Greengrass, too, was nominated for the Oscar™ for Best Achievement in Directing – also missing out to Mr Scorsese.

I have always been greedy for detail - and Barry Ackroyd's Cinematography re-defines the possibilities of the hand-held camera and strikes the perfect aviation-clinical look throughout the 'inflight' interiors. His colours and tones are bone-bearingly real, and his and Greengrass's camera becomes almost lascivious as it prowls the darkest and most unlikely corners of the unravelling horror. From the chaos on the ground to the habitual inflight prattle, Greengrass is everywhere. He pins each and every minute detail of his formidable narrative to your every breath ... choking you with his drive, intention and pace. His virtuoso camera angles are a lesson in themselves and the camera's battle for stability and equilibrium in the post-hijack cabin of United Airlines Flight 93 is unrelenting. That there is even the slightest semblance of hope for a different denoument is the mark of a truly great storyteller ... and the combined skills of his ensemble and crew.

From its simple, eerily familiar and almost routine beginning to the blistering mid-point where the tension can no longer be contained, United 93 is a masterful cinematic ante-mortem examination … and even though forensic investigators have contradicted the popular myth that the passengers managed to make it into the cockpit, the final few minutes of United 93 will connect so brutally with your heart that it may be almost impossible for you to stand it.

It was only through the wide-eyed wonder at what real and raw courage and determination looks like, that I could.

****

The Flight 93 National Memorial


One of the many distinguishing characteristics of the Honour Flight 93 National Memorial is the seasonal variation of the native trees throughout its landscape. The design highlights this feature and will supplement it with a major reforestation effort throughout the site, planting over 140,000 trees at the former coal mine. (Photo by Chuck Wagner)

Film review: Green Zone

Green Zone. 114 minutes. Rated M. Directed by Paul Greengrass. Written by Brian Helgeland. Inspired by the novel by Rajiv Chandrasekaran.

The stakes (and expectations) surrounding Paul Greengrass's (The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum) 'Iraq War film' were always going to be high. Given that he wrote and directed United 93 – the only film to bring additional perspective to the otherwise cinema-defying aircraft high-jackings that defined the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington – it was always going to be fascinating to see what he (and those who collaborated with him on that astonishing piece of cinema) would make of the resulting conflict. The short answer is, strangely, 'not much'.

It is 2003, and the US-led allied forces' invasion of Iraq has created nothing but pandemonium. As fighter bombers rage through the sky and the civilian population react angrily to the American presence in (and destruction of) their city, Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (a constantly frowning Matt Damon) leads his team of soldiers in the hunt for Saddam Hussein's stockpiled weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). As the dangerous search for each likely stash proves fruitless, Miller begins to doubt the integrity of the intelligence reports he is being specifically instructed to follow. And before you can say "… but we already know there were no WMDs", he stumbles across a US Government plan to use the WMD issue to influence the redistribution of power in the fragile (and increasingly hostile) country.

From start to finish, Green Zone pelts along with Greengrass's and cinematographer Barry Ackroyd's (United 93, The Hurt Locker) trademark hand-held camera racing around in, out, over, under, around and through every nook and cranny of the extraordinarily rendered Baghdad (the film was actually shot in Morocco and Spain). Helgeland's (Mystic River, LA Confidential) stereotypical 'good cop, bad cop, even worse cop' script is well-served by the fast and furious pace (edited to within an inch of its life by United 93's Christopher Rouse), even if it does all end up looking and feeling like something that might have been called The Bourne Baghdad Conspiracy.

The essential problem is the film's political opportunism; not only of the motivations behind the invasion of Iraq but also the resulting theories that have given rise to a considerable amount of passionate debate and conjecture. Unlike the cruel and punishing conflict at the hearts of the superior United 93 and The Hurt Locker, Green Zone fatally mistakes floating a raft of opinions about the Iraq war for storytelling. The only time the film draws breath, for example, is towards the end when two great big pieces of anti-war propaganda crash to the ground like ten-ton slabs of cement. Ultimately, however you feel about the circumstances of the Iraq war will define how much you appreciate Green Zone. If cinema masquerading as political grandstanding of the highest order (the last shot's a clunker) is your thing, there's a great deal to enjoy. As a companion piece to United 93, it is truly regrettable … and instantly forgettable.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and an edited version of it was published in the print edition of the Midwest Times.