In praise of crushing disorder

This is supposed to be a bad thing?

His portrayal of the enormous United States military operation to free Phillips from his captors has the calm technological blankness of a Navy commercial, without the 1970s waka-waka guitar. I can’t decide if there’s meant to be anything sardonic about the presentation of the asymmetrical conflict in “Captain Phillips”: Billions of dollars of cutting-edge military hardware and hundreds of corn-fed, gym-toned Americans on one side, four malnourished men with black-market Kalashnikovs on the other. But I kind of think there isn’t.

Andrew O'Hehir @Salon; what a spoiled, sheltered, pampered little man, and kind of pathetic.

Wait ... it's Thursday, right?

There’s a racial or cultural subtext to this film that’s right on the boundary of consciousness, and cannot entirely be ascribed to verisimilitude. Hanks’ Phillips – the only fully realized character in the entire film – remains a calm and rational actor until he is pushed to the limit of human endurance. The Navy officers, SEAL team members and other military personnel are competent, emotionless automata, seen mostly in shadows or illuminated by their electronic gizmos. But the Somalis behave like unmedicated hyperactive children with guns – they’re wild-eyed and hot-tempered, vacillating from murderous rage to companionable good humor and back again every few seconds. “Captain Phillips” is less an adventure yarn about the daring rescue of a captured American than a celebration of a huge and expensive machine that crushes disorder.

Check in the block complete.

Does he really have any grasp what global disorder is? Does he have any idea what the world would be like if the premier power was not a representative republic?

Think Russia with a little Venezuela thrown in for good measure.

I think we may have found a negative indicator. If Andrew hates a movie; it is a must-see. If he loves it; don't go to see it unless you have knitting needles to stick through your eyes and ears.



Hat tip Jawa.