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There are several potential reasons surrounding the real life incident. Captain’s Rescue Revives Debate Over Arming Crews To sum up the article: Many port authorities around the world prohibit ships with weapons aboard from docking. Tanker ships such as this tend to dock several times while in transit, and would be forced to skip docks where ships armed ...

Whilst Piracy can hardly be considered a legally justified activity, there is certain amount of sympathy that exists for 'Somali Pirates'. It is relatively well accepted that the recent spate of Piracy around the Horn of Africa has been motivated by the events of the Second Phase of the Somali Civil war. Many of these Pirates claim they are simply ...

There are two sources of income for Somalian (and other contemporary) pirates: Valuable goods on board and ransom. Of course the valuable goods on board, typically the seaman's pay, is not enough to fund long running pirate activities. It may be enough for single actions but in the movie the pirates had an organisation and backers behind them. Even when it ...

This Op-Ed piece is very telling when it comes to how the script was written, and this from the screenwriter himself. The meat can be found in these two paragraphs: My belief from the beginning was that this ought to be a movie about two captains. They both get up in the morning and get dressed for work; then both go out and do their jobs. That ...

Muse was 18 at the time, and leading a pirate attempt. He was not a "voice of reason", he was young and attempting to make a name for himself. Najee was in a similar situation, though more aggressive. Bilal was younger and trying to "learn the ropes". I'd say they softened Muse up a little, played Najee a little more aggressively and more-or-less left ...

The reason that they didn't have weapons was because at the time the government was refusing to lend weapons to cargo ships because they didn't believe it was appropriate or necessary, even in pirate infested waters. I believe the Captain knew that there was a chance of pirates hijacking his ship also, but he believed that they were slim, or probably 1-3%. ...

You're probably correct that the Somalis' intent was to secure the ship and ransom it. Remember that the pirates were successful only on their second attempt, after an extended chase that put them far outside the original range of capture. Their first (failed) attempt involved two teams and a "mothership" on standby, providing more manpower if nothing else....

First of all, I'm not sure the Navy's presence really worked as a definite deterrent that would stop the pirates from their determined plans, even if they realistically wouldn't have had a chance against them. Even more than that, once they had the ship under control, they would have hostages and the Navy, though surely able, would certainly think twice ...