4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / HDR SCREENSHOTS
Tom Hanks plays Capt. Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama, a massive cargo ship, that was hijacked by four desperate Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean.
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“CAPTAIN PHILLIPS”
4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray; 2013; PG-13 for sustained intense sequences of menace, some violence with bloody images, and for substance use; Digital copy via Amazon Video (4K), Apple TV (4K), Fandango Home (4K), Movies Anywhere (4K), YouTube (4K)
Best extra: 58-minute making-of documentary
A DECADE LATER, it still irks me that Tom Hanks was snubbed by the Academy Awards for his touching performance as Capt. Richard Phillips?
When the 86th Oscar nominations were announced in March 2014, director Paul Greengrass’ true-life crime thriller “Captain Phillips” received six nods including Best Picture. Hanks (two-time Oscar winner, six nominations), who plays the captain of the Maersk Alabama, a massive cargo ship, homeport Norfolk, Va., did not receive a Best Actor nomination despite critical praise. The ship was hijacked by four desperate Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean – the sixth hijacking in a week in April 2009 – and Phillips was held hostage on the Alabama’s lifeboat. It is a powerful and memorable performance.
The climactic finale, an ad-libbed scene between Hanks – he’s escorted into sickbay, injured, in shock and barely able to speak – and non-actor Petty Officer 2nd Class Danielle Albert, a Navy Corpsman, should’ve been the clincher. The first take was a little rocky between the veteran actor and Albert, but who wouldn’t be rattled working with Hollywood’s quintessential-ordinary man?
“It was incredible. She just put everything she knew in front of the camera,” director of photography Barry Ackroyd says of the scene in the making-of documentary. It’s an absolute tearjerker, one of Greengrass’ (“United 93,” “The News of the World”) most powerful cinematic moments.
Hanks did receive a Best Actor nomination from the British Oscars (BAFTA) awards and so did Greengrass for Best Director and seven other nods, including Best Film.
(1&2) Richard Phillips prepares to leave his home in Vermont for his next Merchant Marine deployment, as his wife Andrea (Catherine Keener) gives a goodbye kiss. (3&4) Phillips captains the Maersk Alabama from the Port of Salalah in Oman, and heads toward the Guardafui Channel and then to Mombasa, Kenya. (5&6) Villagers are recruited by warlords to hijack ships off the coast of Somalia. (Somali scenes were captured on Super 16mm)
The British director was personally drawn to the project after Hanks had already signed. For Greengrass, the connection was his father, “A man who’d spent his life at sea,” in the merchant navy in the U.K., he says during the documentary. “I grew up with an understanding of that world.”
Another commanding performance comes from Barkhad Abdi as Muse, the leader of the young Somali pirates. He received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Originally from Somalia, he has vivid memories of the war in Mogadishu as his family escaped to Yemen. Eventually, they won a visa lottery to come to America. “I wanted young men who understood that part of the world to tell [the story],” Greengrass says.
Capt. Richard Phillips also tells his side of the story during the documentary. First off, he says the merchant marines are the “truck drivers” of the ocean, knowing piracy is always on the horizon. “It’s not a matter of ‘if,’ it’s a matter of when,” he explains. “We were always on the edge. It’s just the odds; we were never far away from the Somali coast.”
(1) Maersk Alabama heads south along the African coastline. (2) Phillips checks over emails from his ship office. (3-5) Two 12-foot Somali pirate skiffs follow the Alabama, but eventually call off the attack. The next day one skiff returns with two outboard engines and four Somalis use AK-47s during their takeover of the Alabama. (6&7) Barkhad Abdi as Muse, the leader of the young pirates, received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
EXTRAS
The three-part documentary on the enclosed Blu-ray and digital, examines the production mostly filmed around the port of Kalkara, Malta, on a picturesque island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, south of Sicily. Greengrass was fortunate that Maersk provided the Alabama’s sister, giving them full access, and, as Hanks says, “A lot of places to conk your head.” We see the endless challenges of filming on the open sea – which took a toll on the crew and cast. “The sheer physical attrition, you’re getting battered about every day,” Greengrass groans.
Co-producer Michael Bronner said, “I was astounded by the massive number of resources the U.S. military put into rescuing one man.” Between 60 to 80 Navy SEALS jumped from an aircraft into the Indian Ocean and deployed onto three Navy ships surrounding the orange lifeboat. The turning point in the negotiations came when covert sources in Somalia provided the names of the pirates.
The scenes involving the Navy were filmed off Virginia Beach, VA, and were off-limits for the behind-the-scenes extras. The disc also includes a commentary with Greengrass, in which he rehashes much of the same material in the documentary.
(1) The Alabama crew hides in the engine room. (2&3) Phillips shows the pirates how to launch the lifeboat, but before he can exit they take him hostage. (4&5) Pirate Nour Najee (Faysal Ahmed) continues to threaten Capt. Phillips.
VIDEO
The onscreen 4K results are first-rate, using the original 4K master from 2013, in which Sony scanned the Super 35 format camera negative (2.40:1 aspect ratio) filmed on the Maersk Alabama and the claustrophobic lifeboat. The documentary-style footage of the Somalis (leaving the village, going out to sea, and attacking the cargo ship) was captured with a smaller handheld Super 16mm camera, mounted with a 12:1 zoom lens for wide shots and close-ups on the 12-foot skiffs on the open seas.
On digital platforms “Captain Phillips” has been available in 4K resolution without HDR grading for a number of years. Now, the physical 4K disc and digital include HDR10 and Dolby Vision, for a more dramatic experience with darker black levels, controlled highlights, and a more natural color toning. The film grain is well-structured on the 4K disc, and much larger from the less-resolution 16mm footage, while the added resolution over the 1080p disc is more evident with the wide aerial shots.
The film itself is encoded onto a 100 GB disc, with video bitrates averaging in the low 70 Megabits per second and the peak HDR10 brightness at 1054 nits, averaging 164 nits.
AUDIO
Sony has also upgraded to a new Dolby Atmos soundtrack, giving British composer Henry Jackman’s heart-pounding score a more enveloping experience. Effects are now pushed to the height speakers.
This true-life story is well worth the 4K upgrade, especially housed in a stylish steelbook.
― Bill Kelley III, High-Def Watch producer
While I did not like the amount of handheld camera work involved in this production, I can understand the difficulty of setting it up. It's an important work highlighting the shocking degree of criminal activity being metered out on our important world shipping industry. Something serious needs to be done about this out-of-control modern piracy.
And while on this worthwhile subject, a highly honored German classic from 1963 also needs to be found, so we can appreciate it all over again: "Crime On The High Seas" A.K.A. "Das Feuerschiff" (The Light Ship) released by Columbia Pictures in the USA (for most, this would be the first they would have heard of it)