Captain Phillips

There must be nothing more terrifying than realizing your life is in great danger. That is when your survival instincts kick in, hoping that you'll see this terrible ordeal end without your life being taken away from you.

This is what Capt. Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) encounters throughout Paul Greengrass' Captain Phillips. Based on real (and recent) events, it's a taut film that doesn't let go until the very end. Then again, when you have a film directed, written and shot by the men also responsible for United 93, Shattered Glass and The Hurt Locker respectively, what else would you expect?

It feels like such a sell-out when a front page story gets turned into a movie within five years of first hitting the press. (The events in Captain Phillips take place in April 2009.) But Greengrass pulls no punches with this. No Hollywood treatment, just the facts of the story. Again, this is the man who made United 93.

It also feels like a bit of a sell-out when you have an A-list actor like Hanks in the title role. (A stark contrast to the roster of unknowns in United 93.) But once the story begins, all doubts are cast aside. What Hanks does in his final scene has to be one of the most staggeringly brilliant pieces of acting I've ever seen.

Captain Phillips is quite simply put a transfixing film. Much like United 93, it will give you one hell of an emotional beating. Thanks to Hanks' performance, Greengrass' vision, Billy Ray's script and Barry Ackroyd's keen eye, they make Captain Phillips a film you simply must see.

My Rating: *****

United 93

The events of September 11, 2001 are ones that will forever be in the memory of the American people, much like the attack on Pearl Harbor and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. To quote Franklin Roosevelt, it's a date which will live in infamy.

On September 11, 2001, four commercial airplanes are hijacked by terrorists. After two crashed into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon, the passengers and crew of the fourth plane decide to struggle against the four terrorists to take back control of the plane.

Since the movie was released not too long after the attacks, the events are still fresh in the public's memory. Paul Greengrass, who's better known to some for directing two of the Bourne movies, shows what happened on that doomed plane. Clearly the most emotional scene is when the passengers are calling family members to tell them that they love them. Heartbreaking. Is United 93 one of the best movies of the last decade? In my opinion, it's one of the most important but I wouldn't say the best.

My Rating: ****1/2