‘Honesty is the best policy’... Really?
During an interview, I was told they were looking for somebody who was honest
to which my instinctive response was to simply shout out, “well I'm not a
thief”. Considering that there's nothing that could make me sound more like a
thief than that, I instead decided on the much better alternative of, “Well I
don't lie... often”. Panicking about my stupid inclusion of the word ‘often’ I
then added “I mean like, I- err, only lie if I have to”. Obviously by this I
just meant that I could be trusted to keep my mouth shut if somebody told me a
secret about their love life, finances or horrendously rotten genitals. However,
at this point my interviewers were already pulling the exact facial expression
that Bruce Wayne's parents did about two seconds before they were shot by a
mugger in a darkened ally. When they asked me about honesty, if I had just lied
and said that I only ever speak the truth then ironically I would have saved
myself from losing most of my bodyweight through stress-induced sweating. In general I am a very honest person but I
also have common sense and sometimes it is for the best to lie. All I did was
tell the truth here and by accident I managed to convince everybody in the room
that I had a secret history as a slimy Victorian grifter.
I mention all this because firstly I like
to waffle and secondly, the question of honesty has been the main focus
surrounding the release of the new film Captain Phillips. Based on a
true story the movie claims to accurately depict the hijacking of an American
cargo ship by Somalian pirates back in 2009, however the film feels as though
it is being presented in two halves with the first hour specifically being
dedicated to the attempted ship-theft-bullshittery. There are so many things
that I loved about this but I suppose I'll start with the way in which the
attackers are less equipped than a young eunuch boy in a whore house. They've
got a few men, a few guns and a ladder to take them onto a ship that has a working
telephone and the entire U.K. and U.S. Navy on speed dial. Sadly though when
Captain Philips notices these desperate chancers, America is too busy to pick
up the phone and we Brits kind of have a tendency to dismiss huge problems as
being “a lot of bother about nothing”. Although his ship does have a defence
system, it's really not that good because it makes the assumption that
hijackers are like stray cats and can be scared off with the quick spray of a
hose. It is therefore up to the unarmed crew to resort to the ships second
defences which involves hiding in the shadows and hoping the whole thing just
blows over.
Life is like a box of chocolates- I hate chocolate. |
The second hour is however much more of a
kind of claustrophobic thriller in which the hijackers attempt to piss off back
home in a small lifeboat with a hostage... I won't say who it is but as a hint
there might be a subtle clue in the film’s title. Here Phillips must use his
wits, charm and common sense to survive as tensions begin to build and the
hijackers develop a bad case of itchy-trigger-finger. If you're watching this
for the do's and don’ts of surviving a hostage situation then I think the film
makes it very clear that writing notes is a big mistake. At one point, Phillips
notices a biro-pen and so makes a grab for it after being shown the naughty end
of a machine-gun and ordered fairly clearly to stay completely fucking still.
For one amazing moment, I thought Phillips was going to go ape-shit and stab
them all to death with it Joe Pesci style, however as it turned out he'd
instead been struck by inspiration and decided to leave a note to his family
telling them how much he loved them. However to just say “I love you”
apparently isn't enough and so in one of the most suspenseful scenes of the
year and despite the risk of having his brains shot out he attempts to scrawl
out a fucking novel. With them all confined to a small space as a rescue
operation is formed by the Americans, this second half really reminded me of a
kind of sea-based remake of Dog Day Afternoon. Hmm... Sea-Dog Day Afternoon
is such a shit pun but using it would save me coming up with a title for this
blog. Fuck it, it's done!
Anyway so the reason I mentioned all that
bollocks about honesty earlier is because since its release, a lot of chatter
has been shat out about the accuracy of this movie. According to Phillip's crew
members, the film neglects to mention that he had been warned about the
likelihood of an attack and also that he failed to take any action when alerted
to the hijackers’ initial presence. Some crew members have also claimed that
Phillips probably wanted to be taken hostage and had a death wish, although
from what I've researched they didn't really offer any explanation as to why?
Because you know... if you're going to publicly perform a character assassination
then you really don't need to back up your claims or provide the little things
such as evidence and hard-facts. I suppose to defend the film from this, I
would highlight two main points... The first is that Captain Phillips is
a Paul Greengrass movie and the second is that where film and facts are
concerned, who really gives a solitary fuck?
So to address point one I guess we should
give some background on Greengrass as a filmmaker. Whereas most directors start
their career off by making music videos, short films or bullshitting about
sneaking into Hollywood offices, Greengrass began by working for current
affairs show World in Action. From here he took his journalistic skills
and applied them to drama's that investigated the Gulf War, institutionalised
racism within the police-force specifically in regards to the murder of Stephen
Lawrence and then most famously Bloody Sunday. From here he got his big budget
break and made a couple of Bourne Movies which not only mixed action
with the bollocks of bureaucracy but were so good that they even managed to
donkeypunch the Bond franchise
into a new direction. Perhaps even still though, the biggest proof
of both Greengrass's integrity and his huge balls is the 2006 film United
93. A mere five years after the world got even more fucked-up on 9/11 he
made a movie that not only dealt with the slightly sensitive subject but that
focused predominantly on the hijacked plane that was brought down by the
passengers. My point is that if his ability to accurately depict true stories
on film was in anyway less than genius, United 93 would have killed his
career more effectively than a broken bottle through the eye. Not only did he
survive this though but the film went on to huge acclaim with Greengrass
receiving the kind of backslapping praise that Michael Bay could only ever
achieve if he announced his imminent retirement.
Oh, look! There's another oscar on the horizon! |
The second point is, as I said- who really
gives a fuck about sticking to the facts in a movie? Despite being a
masterpiece, Fargo opens with some text explaining that the film is
based on a true story. As it turns out the whole thing is completely fictitious
having been made by The Coens who claimed that they couldn't find a true story
that was interesting enough and so just made one up instead. Films don't exist
to simply report back the facts or to even educate us on the subject that they
claim to be about. Their sole purpose it to entertain, to tell stories and
perhaps to seek out what Werner Herzog refers to as 'the ecstatic truth'. As it
happens though with Captain Phillips, Greengrass actually stands by his
version of events having researched the shit out of what went down. By his own
admission, he has obviously condensed the events so that what may have taken
eight hours now only takes about fifteen minutes. He has also obviously
invented dialogue and conversations because there are only so many interviews
and so much record reading can help you before you'd need an actual fucking
psychic. The film doesn't need to stick to the truth at all if this compromises
the quality of the narrative however it seems like Greengrass is fairly happy
that what we see is coincidentally still pretty close to the truth. This would
therefore surely suggest that the crew who are publicly screaming “bullshit”
must have some reason for wanting to discredit the film? If so I can't for the
life of me figure out what that reason might be. Although having said that if
this film does contradict them and their claims are in fact false, I guess the
$50,000,000 law suit that they've filed against their ex-employers would
probably get farted into oblivion. So there is that I suppose...
Greengrass makes politically aware films
that are rooted in reality and yet never feel preachy, po-faced, miserable and
certainly not boring. In fact, if we pretended that this movie was entirely
based on fiction you'd still be left with a stunning thriller that explores
both the experience of being hijacked and also the desperation of the
hijackers. Throughout the story we're treated to the perspectives of all sides
involved with the suggestion that in fact the root cause of all evil may
predictably be the usual herd of world-fucking, corporate cunts. Hanks gives an
extraordinary performance in the lead role although we should probably expect this
now since he's played a man with a sniffle in Philadelphia, a fake cowboy in Toy
Story and a fish fucker in Splash. Praise should also go to Barkhad
Abdi who is the unexperienced actor cast in the role of lead hijacker. Not only
did he expertly hold his own against Hanks here but his terrifying performance
will ensure that if I'm ever on a boat and a stranger approaches I'm going to
kill the fucker straightaway rather than take any chances. If you get past all
this mudslinging about the truth then in my humble opinion Captain Phillips is
without a doubt one of the best films of the year. Having experienced something
as powerful as this, am I really expected to care if some money-hunting cunt
tells me it's all based on a load of old shit? I couldn't give two fucks either
way and if I'm being honest if you've got any sense then you won't either!
Follow this blog or I'll fucking cut you.
Hilarious!! Haha, loved the film and love this blog, too!! Always have a read on a Monday before work and glad they go up so early!! Means I can catch them, have a read and fill my hate-vial to start me off for another week.
ReplyDeleteAnyone else reading this share my routine?
Also perhaps there should be a mailing list, I'd appreciate it being sent to my email each day, I think, to let me know when a new one's online!