Something to watch tonight: Friday 16 August

Captain Phillips (Greengrass, 2013)

Tom Hanks’ career was in a weird place by 2013. His only non-animated fea­ture film cred­it between 2009’s ter­rible Da Vinci Code sequel Angels & Demons and Captain Phillips are the 9/11 mis­fire Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the mis­un­der­stood Cloud Atlas and the awful Larry Crowne, in which Mr. Hanks seemed to be so botoxed that he could hardly move his face. It’s one of the few films I’ve actu­ally walked out of.

But then he gets some­thing worth sink­ing his teeth into and he comes to life again. Captain Phillips is fol­lowed by Bridge of Spies, Sully and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Those last two could work with Captain Phillips as a great Hanks-playing-decent-real-people trilogy.

I reviewed Captain Phillips for the old Funerals & Snakes:

In Captain Phillips Tom Hanks gives his finest per­form­ance since Road to Perdition but is run close all the way through by new­comer Barkhad Abdi as the Somali pir­ate who takes Hanks’ con­tain­er ship (and Hanks) host­age only to get well and truly in too deep. Paul Greengrass’s adapt­a­tion of the real Richard Phillips’ mem­oir is pitch per­fect through­out, bal­an­cing the con­trast­ing lives of two men whose day jobs are destined to bring them into con­flict. Sometimes a good per­form­ance – and a film – is tipped over into great­ness by a single scene and that is very much the case here. Hanks has a scene near the end that amp­li­fies and illu­min­ates everything that we’ve seen before and it may be the only genu­inely heart-stopping moment I’ve had at the cinema this year.

Also in that December 2013 column: Naomi Watts as Diana, Justin Timberlake in the ‘“thrill­er” Runner, Runner, Juliette Binoche in Camille Claudel, Hugh Jackman in Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners (“hor­rible, nasty little manip­u­lat­ive pot­boil­er”), Keri Russell and Bret McKenzie in Austenland, and the Richard Curtis romance About Time.

Where to watch Captain Phillips

Aotearoa: Streaming on Netflix and Prime Video

Australia: Streaming on Netflix, Binge and Stan

Canada: Digital rental

Ireland & UK: Streaming on Prime Video

USA: Streaming on Netflix

Latest comments

On yesterday’s recom­mend­a­tion of Collateral and Miami Vice:

Reader JS of Wellington said, “Any film that advert­ises itself with monu­ment­al cliché of someone point­ing a fire­arm turns me right off.” Sorry, JS, there’s anoth­er gun being bran­dished today.

But almost imme­di­ately after­wards read­er RI of Auckland wrote and said, “Fuck yeah, now we’re talk­ing. I much prefer Collateral over Miami Vice too, but have only watched the lat­ter the one time, might give it anoth­er go.”

So, I hope that means that, even when I can’t please every­one, each recom­mend­a­tion appeals to some of you.