Saw two movies recently. Gravity and Captain Phillips. Both big star big box office studio movies; both good. Gravity is one of those virtuoso directors movies. Its a straightforward survival flick, focus on Sandra Bullock, but with extraordinary visual and technical tricks that make you watch, so long as youre willing to suspend scientific disbelief, like about the third time Sandra Bullock gets blasted with a shower of gazillions of metal particles of space debris, all traveling many times faster than a bullet, not one of which, not even one the size of a grain of sand, penetrates her suit to finish her off, because in space thats all it would take. Captain Phillips is more interesting and not just because its based on a real life incident. I always like movies that deal with people working, in this case men working on a container ship. Tom Hanks is superb and the movie is tense and action-filled, with the U.S. Navy and Navy SEALs coming in to save the day. Its clear hes a decent, competent man trying to do a job; definitely no hero. All good stuff. But thats not what struck me about the movie. My feelings were more ambivalent about who to root for. Dont get me wrong. Im not in favor of guys with AK-47s and piracy. But the courage and seamanship of those Somalis in those open falling apart boats with crappy old motors, some 200+ miles out to sea, first against this big monster container ship spraying fire hoses while their little open boat bounces thirty feet into the air and then against 3 (three!) U.S. Navy warships, helicopters, drones and SEALs hardly seems an even fight. This combined with the staggering lack of choice the Somalis seem to have that has forced them to do this to survive makes this a more interesting and ambivalent film than it might appear on the surface. Thats my take, anyway. What do you think?
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 06:00:17 +0000
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