Captain Phillips (2013)

  I'm sure pretty much everyone by now has heard of the true story behind this movie.  Captain Richard Phillips was taken hostage by armed Somali pirates and rescued by U.S. Navy Seals.  There was some controversy afterwards, when the movie was released.  The crew sued the production, claiming that it was factually inaccurate and that it painted them in a negative light.  That's for the courts to decide.  Based on seeing the movie, however, they may have a point.

Captain Phillips (Tom Hanks) is running the cargo ship Alabama around the Horn of Africa when it is attacked by pirates.  He orders the crew to disperse and hide in the engine room.  The pirate leader, Musa (Barkhad Abdi), is under pressure from his warlord boss to bring back a big score, either in ransom money or cargo.  Phillips uses every Home Alone trick he can think of to keep the pirates separated, off-balance, and distracted to stall for time while their distress signal is handled by the authorities.  Musa, however, is not just a thug.  He knows that Phillips is trying to hose him but, for him, violence is the very last resort.  When the crew finally manages to counter-attack, Musa is clever enough to grab Phillips while his three-man crew boards a lifeboat.  Unfortunately, the heat, the ignominy of having to run, and rising frustration that they are going home nearly empty-handed starts to work on the other pirates, whipping them into a frenzy.  Still hoping for some kind of payday, Musa tries to negotiate with the Navy, but once the Seals show up (led by Max Martini, as the quintessential tough guy) it's pretty much all over but the crying.

This got nominated for a bunch of Oscars this year (six, if you're counting) but didn't take home a single statue because 1) Gravity blew people's minds and 2) this was the most unlikeable character Tom Hanks has ever played.  Phillips shows almost prescient abilities, able to drop coded clues to his men, anticipate every step in the Navy playbook, and psychologically analyze the pirates for maximum disruptive effect.  I'm sure cargo crews have extensive training courses on how to handle the rampant piracy issue but Hanks' character maintains his cool to an almost superhuman level.  It didn't feel real, and for a true story, that's bad.