Over Thanksgiving break, my stepdad and I chose to watch the 2013 film “Captain Phillips” on Netflix. This was my first time watching this film, but if you’re like me and are constantly on social media you have probably seen a meme or two with the “I’m the captain now” scene. Anyway, after watching the film (which was based on a true story), I wanted to do some digging about the real Captain Phillips. In the film, Tom Hanks is portrayed as the sort of hero of the story. I, as a watcher of the film, felt empathy, concern, and overall just terrible for Phillips. I’m not going to give any spoilers in case you haven’t watched it yet but the ending really overemphasized those feelings I felt throughout the entire movie. Now to the juicy stuff… after the movie ended my stepdad said “did you know that some of the workers on the ship sued Phillips for this whole thing?” I was shocked; in my head, I was like, how can they put the blame on him? Well, then I did some digging on the true story and it all made so much more sense.
In the film, it does show one scene where Phillips opens up an email warning him about piracy in his area and how he should return to port. He obviously ignores this email and just makes the crew do some safety drills “in case of emergency”. In the real story, after all of this took place a group of 11 crew members sued the shipping company Maersk and Phillips for nearly $50 million for “willful, wonton and conscious disregard for their safety”. They were claiming that Phillips knew about the piracy warnings and still sailed too close to the shores of Somalia and put all of their lives in danger. Some have stated that he was sailing 600 miles too close to the shore to get to their destination more quickly and ultimately make more money. Anonymous members of the crew have stated that Phillips was really arrogant and no one wanted to sail with him. It was very apparent that a majority of the crew members didn’t feel comfortable with Phillips and disagreed with how he was portrayed in the film.
Now, this is obviously not the first time Hollywood has made a movie that was different than the actual real accounts of the story, but it did shock me how different the real Phillips comes across as opposed to the Phillips in the film. Now, there are always two sides to every story and it’s impossible to put all of the blame onto Phillips but it was surprising to learn the other side of him the movie chose not to portray. Overall, I really enjoyed the movie for entertainment purposes but the real story really opened my eyes to how Hollywood portrays certain “true story” movies and why digging a little deeper can change your whole opinion.