Captain Phillips

3 ½ pipes out of 4

Tom Hanks is back in true form with his brilliant portrayal of cargo freighter captain Phillips whose ship is taken over by pirates. Jumping right into the controversy, yes there probably are many inaccuracies and maybe Phillips was not as heroic as he is portrayed in the film but that does not take away from the film itself. As a disclaimer in every movie similar to Captain Phillips, they state that they are BASED on true events. They do not say that it is all true; they simply take the idea of the events and they hollywoodize it. If Paul Greengrass had portrayed the actual events of the pirate hijacking, he wouldn’t have a very interesting film. With what he did portray, he has an extremely interesting film. Tom Hanks plays the titular character and is the biggest name in the film rightfully deserving the acclaim that is coming his way but as the Golden Globes showed, () has a shocking break out role as the Somali Pirate Captain. What Greengrass does with the portrayal or the Somali pirates completely took me by surprise. He still shows them as the main villains of the movie but he shows how they got to the position that they are in and almost makes us feel sorry for them, almost. This depiction of Somali Pirates may change the mind of many on how they are perceived; it certainly has changed my view. The true meat of the film doesn’t come until the last 45 to 30 minutes when Hanks is trapped in the small rescue dingy with the pirates in close quarters. The best acting that I have ever seen comes from Hanks in the final three minutes of the film. It is compelling and truly heartbreaking. Another fantastic film created by director Paul Greengrass and Tom Hanks.

American Hustle

3 pipes out of 4

America has been hustled. In every commercial designed to market American Hustle it is projected as a comedy when in fact it is not. There may be a few funny moments but it is much more of a drama. The marketers even hustled the Golden Globes winning Best Picture for a comedy or musical. What if fear is the case is that the main comedy of the film was supposed to come out of the situations and actions of the characters. The problem with this was that while these actions and actions may have been designed to be funny, when compared to the whole film and the desperation of the characters, they are not actually that funny. Had American Hustle been billed as a serious drama I would have come out of the film much more satisfied but being a comedy I was expecting to feel happy and energetic when all I felt was depressed. Don’t get me wrong, Christian Bale pulls of an acting masterpiece along with Amy Adams, with Jennifer Lawrence doing a superb job as bale’s deranged wife. Bradley Cooper on the other hand simply does an adequate job in his role not really stretching his acting from his other roles, most similarly in The Silver Linings Playbook. A theory has floated out there that Cooper can only act well when he is surrounded by good actors and I am beginning to agree with this theory. Cooper did well in A-Team alongside Liam Neeson, Sharlto Copley and Jessica Biel and he did his best work in The Silver Linings Playbook alongside Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Deniro and Jackie Weaver. His lone projects such as The Hangover Part II and III as well as Limitless have been terrible. But I digress, as long as you know what you are going into American Hustle is a must see before the Oscars because it has a good chance to win big.