Saving Mr Banks (2013)

Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) shows an unimpressed P.L.Travers (Emma Thompson) around Disney Land.

This is based on the true story of how the book of Mary Poppins came to be adapted into a live-action film by Walt Disney. I know what you’re thinking… at best this will be charming but also no doubt twee and formulaic. Surprising though, it’s actually very good.

It’s funny watching Mary Poppins’ author – prim and proper Pamela J. Travers (Emma Thompson) – frequently admonish well-meaning Americans for daring to call her by her first name, and repel all approaches towards her that border on anything more friendly than ‘distant’. When one of the song-writers she is working with at Disney mentions “The Great” Dick Van Dyke (you’ll remember he played the ‘cockney’ chimney sweep in Mary Poppins)  Her response is “Olivier is great, Guinness is great, Dick Van Dyke is NOT!”. You also get to watch as those famously catchy songs are composed : Let’s Fly a Kite, A Spoonful of Sugar, Feed The Birds etc.

Adding an extra layer of depth and emotion is well-told backstory showing Traver’s troubled childhood in Australia with her much-loved but alcoholic father (Colin Farrell). Travers’ character of Mary Poppins was based on a brisk and well-mannered Aunt who came to the family’s rescue when her father was seriously ill. In real life things didn’t work out very well so she made sure they did in her fantasy version…

Tom Hanks makes a good Walt Disney, often smoking (Walt Disney died from lung cancer), but warm and generous and also very business savvy. He desperately needs Pamela to sign the release papers for Mary Poppins but it turns out to be a lot harder than he ever imagined.

Funny, touching, charming and only a little twee 7/10

Captain Phillips (2013)

“Listen Hanks! We liked you in Toy Story but now you are pushing your luck!!”

I don’t like hostage dramas in general (predictable and samey), so I wasn’t very keen to watch this: a film about a cargo vessel being boarded by Somali pirates. There was a lot written at the time about how this was based on a true story and it was impossible to miss the obvious fact that Captain Phillips (played by Tom Hanks) had survived the experience. So already you have a tension-reducer right there. Not that they would kill off Tom Hanks anyway – a quick search on the internet reveals the number of films Tom Hanks’ character has been killed in as precisely 2. (and no Philadelphia doesn’t count)

Fortunately, not only is Hanks very good in the role as the practical and brave captain but the scope is admirably broad with just as much time paid to the backstory and motivations of the Somali pirates as to those of Phillips. The captain of the Somali pirates Abduwali Muse (Barkhad Abdi) also impresses and won a much deserved BAFTA for his role.

This being said you still know that Phillips survives so even during particularly tense moments – for example where Phillips is alone with the increasingly hot-headed and desperate pirates in a small lifeboat – the tension is not as intense as it could have been. The only real question is ‘when’ he will be rescued. The ‘how’ being answered as soon as the Navy Seals train their sniper rifles on the boat.

Hopefully apart from being a good movie this will do a service to merchant shipping as a whole. It’s almost unbelievable how vulnerable large cargo vessels like the one in this film can be. You wonder at the lack of even a single armed guard on board. In fact in this case even a well placed crew member could have unhooked the boarding ladder and saved a whole lot of expense and trouble.

Overrated upon release but definitely one of the better hostage dramas you will see. 6/10