'Captain Phillips': The Movie, The Book, and the Controversy

By Patch Columnist Philip R. Devlin.

Tom Hanks has been on the talk-show circuit all week touting his new movie to be released on Friday, Oct. 11, "Captain Phillips." The movie centers around Capt. Richard Phillips, a merchant mariner from picturesque Underhill, VT, whose harrowing experience with Somali pirates in April 2009 is depicted in the movie. The movie is based upon the book that Phillips wrote in 2010. It was entitled A Captain's Duty.

However, both the book and the movie are not without their detractors. Among those detractors is West Hartford resident A.T.M. Reza, one of 20 crew members of the Maersk Alabama cargo ship when it was boarded by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean on April 8, 2009. It was the first act of piracy against an American merchant vessel since prior to the War of 1812!

Reza's basic contention is that both the book and the movie exaggerate the heroism of Captain Phillips and neglect the major role that both he and other crew members played in thwarting the hijacking. For example, according to an article published in the Hartford Courant three years ago, Reza maintains that he duped one of the hijackers into trusting him and was able to subdue that hijacker with the help of the ship's chief engineer. Furthermore, 16 of the 20 crew members have filed litigation against the ship's owners claiming that Captain Phillips failed to heed a piracy warning that suggested that all merchant ships stay at least 600 miles away from the Somali coast. The Alabama was just over 200 miles off of the coast when it was hijacked. Here is the text of the warning issued by the ICC International Maritime Bureau at the time:

A total of 36 vessels were boarded and one vessel hijacked. Seven crew members were taken hostage, six kidnapped, three killed, and one missing — presumed dead. In the majority of incidents, the attackers were heavily armed with guns or knives. The use and threat of violence against crew members remains unacceptably high. Waters around Somalia continue to be notorious for hijacking of vessels and the abduction of crew for ransom.

Despite the controversy generated by the litigants, all signs point to a big opening this weekend for "Captain Phillips." After all, megastar Tom Hanks does play the leading role as the captain; additionally, Seal Team 6, the Navy's superstar special ops unit that took out Osama Bin Laden a few years ago, plays a critically important role in the captain's rescue. Demonstrating incredible patience, determination, and marksmanship on rolling seas, three members of Seal Team 6 killed the three Somali hijackers with three simultaneous shots to their heads. It was a dramatic, almost unbelievable finish to a tense five-day ordeal.

The movie condenses the action to a single day — a fact at odds with the truth, but one that is easy to accept for the purpose of heightening the drama. The larger question about whether or not Captain Phillips is more heroic than he actually was and whether or not the heroism of West Hartford's A.T.M. Reza is diminished by both the book and the movie remains. The answers to those questions may emerge with time and testimony in court. The rest of us will have to just wait and see how that will play out.

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