The director of the new Tom Hanks’ hit Captain Phillips isn’t about to abandon ship.
The film, based on the 2009 pirating of a U.S. cargo vessel, has come under attack from members of the actual crew for not portraying key details of the story accurately.
In short, the film is a lie, they allege.
Paul Greengrass, whose credits include United 93 and Green Zone, says such comments are rubbish. He’s done his homework and will defend his film, as he explained during an AMA (ask me anything) interview at Reddit.
When we started the film, it was a top priority for me to look into this issue in every detail … myself, along with my colleague Michael Bronner formerly of 60 minutes, with whom I worked on United 93 and other projects, we researched the background of the Mersk Alabama hijacking in exhausting detail over many months. We spoke to every member of the Alabama crew bar one, all of the U.S. Military responders that played a leading role in these events, and thoroughly researched backgrounds of the 4 pirates and the issue of Somali piracy generally. And I’m 100% satisfied that the picture we present of these events in the film, including the role playing by Captain Phillips, is authentic. I stand by the picture I give in the film, absolutely.
This isn’t the first time a potential Oscar favorite came under fire for allegedly misrepresenting reality. Last year, the director of Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow, defended her film after critics claimed it inaccurately depicted the fact-finding effort that led to the death of Osama bin Laden.
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