Maybe that’s just me. Under Siege is a particularly fine entry in the Die Hard-in-something-other-than-a-skyscraper oeuvre. Better certainly than both of the Die Hard-in-the-White House wannabees that have come out this year. But part of me thinks I can’t be the only one. Perhaps this is just one of the hurdles facing filmmakers trying to make serious films nowadays.  And the types of films Greengrass makes – big, grown-up, challenging, and often costly – would make you think he needs to work within a particular safety zone. Ed Zwick comes to mind as the other director of note trying something similar. But even Zwick seems to have reached a compromise within his films (they all flirt with big messages before settling on a kind of middle ground). Greengrass is one of the few mainstream directors taking risks with high budget studio films. And it’s this that makes Captain Phillips as good a thriller as we’re likely to see this year. Perhaps not the Oscar home-run many have written it up to be before they’ve seen it, but a shining example of smart filmmaking from an especially smart filmmaker.  Smart because Greengrass doesn’t do the expected stuff. A less assured director would have resorted to the safety blanket of a cut away. The suffering wife at home, frenzied news crews capturing the unfolding drama. But he doesn’t. And there’s a sense he’s having fun not doing that. Greengrass sets it up beautifully – Catherine Keener playing down-to-earth spouse in the early scenes, a quick email home after Hanks’ first brush with danger, and then that’s it. A few minutes of screen time and Keener’s done, never to be seen again. Greengrass wants to keep us all at sea with Hanks’ Phillips. And so a story about a man at the mercy of Somali pirates feels achingly real. Tense because we feel stuck there with him, dramatic because there’s very little flag-waving heroism here. Cinematographer Barry Ackroyd doesn’t allow for any big hero camera shots – he shoots close, his camera constantly moving, often awkwardly behind our main protagonist’s head. It never lets us settle. It’s in these details that the film’s true strength shows. Greengrass isn’t a conventional filmmaker, even when contained within the conventions of his genre. What other filmmaker could have made United 93? Or maybe that should be – what other filmmaker could have made a film as brilliantly free of finger-pointing as United 93? There’s a similar marvel at the heart of Captain Phillips. Those bad guys hunting out our trapped crew at the film’s mid-point? Greengrass doesn’t paint them as broadly as that. The film’s supposed big bad – a Somali pirate by the name of Muse – is anything but.  Hanks will rightly gain countless plaudits for his Captain Richard Phillips. He’s grounded and believable, conveying his desperation and heroics not through big speeches but a terrific nervous physicality. And he gets one absolutely killer scene, a two minute tour de force more affecting than most films of this type manage in two hours.  It’s impressive stuff. Even more so given that by the film’s close, Greengrass has made me forget all about Steven Seagal and a chef called Casey Rybeck.  Captain Phillips is out in UK cinemas on the 18th October. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.