Courage.
That’s the word that kept coming to mind as I watched Captain Phillips.
But the *best* display of courage I saw was not in what Captain Phillips did. It was not in the crew. It was not in the team of SEALS. It was in the medic who treated the man who had been through an ordeal none of us could possibly imagine. That, to me, was the utmost display of courage. Tears streamed down my face during those scenes—tears of utter amazement at how humanely and how kindly the medic knew to be in order to provide the medical care needed.
I cried too for the underlying story and how beautifully Hanks played that scene. It is in those final scenes that Tom Hanks earned, surely, another Best Actor nomination come Oscar time. Sure, I’ve read that the story shown on the big screen is a far cry from what actually happened off the eastern coast of Africa. But whatever the real story is, nothing makes Hanks’s acting less strong, less convincing, less raw.
The other theme woven throughout this story was that of our military. Sure, I’ve seen a lot of the movies about out military for doing the jobs we think about: Hurt Locker, Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down, etc. But this nonwar depiction of how our military worked to save some of our citizens—private citizens—gave me chills. It held me in awe. And it made me incredibly proud and appreciative.
It showed courage.