Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) takes command of the MV Maersk Alabama, an unarmed container ship from Port of Salalah in Oman, with orders to sail through the Gulf of Aden to Mombasa, round the Horn of Africa. Wary of pirate activity off the coast of Somalia, the captain orders strict security precautions on the vessel and carries out practice drills.
During a drill, the vessel is chased by Somali pirates in two skiffs;
Phillips succeeds in outrunning them when one gives up after hearing
Phillips on the radio calling for immediate military air support (a
bluff) and the other loses engine power while trying to gain speed under
the rough water Captain Phillips created. The next day one of the
skiffs returns with four heavily armed pirates led by Abduwali Muse (Barkhad Abdi);
they are carrying a ladder they had hastily welded the night before.
Despite the best efforts of Phillips and his crew, the pirates board and
take control of the Maersk Alabama, capturing Captain Phillips after he cuts the ship's engine power and tells the crew to hide in the ship's engine room.
Phillips offers Muse the contents of the ship's safe ($30,000), but
under orders from his boss (the local Somali faction leader) Muse's plan
is to ransom the ship and crew in exchange for millions of dollars of insurance money from the shipping company.
A crew member manages to cut the ship's emergency power, plunging the
lower decks into darkness. As Muse, the pirate captain, attempts to
search the engine room, the crew members overpower him. Negotiating with
the other three pirates, one with badly injured feet, the crewmen
arrange to trade Phillips for Muse and the ship's lifeboat. The pirates force Phillips onto the lifeboat and launch it, intending to hold the captain for ransom.
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