Captain Phillips (film)

Captain Phillips is a 2013 American biographical survival thriller film directed by Paul Greengrass and starring Tom Hanks and Barkhad Abdi. The film is inspired by the true story of the 2009 Maersk Alabama hijacking, an incident during which merchant mariner Captain Richard Phillips was taken hostage by pirates in the Indian Ocean led by Abduwali Muse.

Richard Phillips Tom Hanks takes command of the MV Maersk Alabama, an unarmed container ship from the Port of Salalah in Oman, with orders to sail through the Gulf of Aden to Mombasa, Kenya. Wary of pirate activity off the coast of the Horn of Africa, he and First Officer Shane Murphy Michael Chernus order strict security precautions on the vessel and carry out practice drills. During a drill, the vessel is chased by Somali pirates in two skiffs, and Phillips calls for help. Knowing that the pirates are listening to radio traffic, he pretends to call a warship, requesting immediate air support. One skiff turns around in response, and the other manned by four heavily armed pirates led by Abduwali Muse Barkhad Abdi loses engine power trying to steer through the Maersk Alabama s wake.The next day Muse s skiff, now fitted with two outboard engines, returns with the same four pirates aboard. Despite the best efforts of Phillips and his crew, the pirates secure their ladder to the Maersk Alabama. As they board, Phillips tells the crew to hide in the engine room and allows himself to be captured. He offers Muse the 30,000 in the ships safe, but Muses orders are to ransom the ship and crew in exchange for millions of dollars of insurance money from the shipping company. While they search the ship, Murphy sees that the youngest pirate Bilal Barkhad Abdirahman does not have sandals and tells the crew to line the engine room hallway with broken glass. Chief Engineer Mike Perry David Warshofsky cuts power to the ship, plunging the lower decks into darkness. Bilal cuts his feet when they reach the engine room, and Muse continues to search alone. The crew members ambush Muse and arrange to release him into a lifeboat to get the intruders off the ship. However, the pirates refuse to release Phillips, and the lifeboat launches with all five of them on board. ........

Source: Wikipedia