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"Phillips wasn't the big leader like he is in the movie," says one crew member, who, for legal reasons, spoke with The Post anonymously. He worked very closely with Phillips on the Maersk Alabama and was alarmed by his behavior from the beginning. Phillips, he says, had a bad reputation for at least 12 years prior, known as a sullen and self-righteous captain.

"No one wants to sail with him," he says.

After the hijacking, 11 crew members have sued Maersk Line and the Waterman Steamship Corp. for almost $50 million, alleging "willful, wanton and conscious disregard for their safety." Phillips is a witness for the defense.

"The crew had begged Captain Phillips not to go so close to the Somali coast," said Deborah Waters, the attorney who brought the claim. "He told them he wouldn't let pirates scare him or force him to sail away from the coast."

Phillips had taken command of the Maersk in late March 2009. Left for him, says the crew member, was a detailed anti-piracy plan now used by all ships per the International Maritime Organization. Should pirates get too close, the crew should cut the lights and power and lock themselves below deck.

"He didn't want anything to do with it, because it wasn't his plan," says the crew member. "He was real arrogant." Phillips says he knows nothing about such a plan.

Over this three-week period, 16 container ships in the same region had been attacked by pirates, and eight had been taken hostage.

As the film opens, Hanks, as Phillips, is seen assiduously tending to safety protocols. "Let's tighten up security!" he orders. "I want everything closed, locked, even in port."

Phillips has admitted that, on board, he got seven e-mails about increased piracy off Somalia -- each exhorting ships to move farther offshore by at least 600 miles.

The Maersk was 235 miles off the coast, says the crew member, though Phillips has since rounded that number up to 300.

"I couldn't tell you exactly the miles," Phillips tells The Post. "I don't know."

In 2010, Phillips told CNN the Maersk was 300 miles off shore; published reports from that time had the ship at 240.

Phillips ignored every missive and later admitted he didn't share these warnings -- though they were not sent exclusively to him.

Meanwhile, another crew member was tasked with keeping track of every ship in the region that had been attacked. Using the e-mails, a chart was built. On it were the names of each ship, the dates and times they were assaulted, their latitude and longitude, the ransom demanded.

When presented with this data, a crew member says, Phillips ignored it, too. In the film, Hanks tells his crew -- depicted as lazy coffee guzzlers who fall back on the security of their union-protected employment -- that their job is to get the cargo ship from Point A to Point B in the shortest, cheapest time possible.

In fact, says this crew member, the Maersk veered off course by 180 degrees south -- this was during the first attack, on April 8. Phillips denies this, and says the boat only picked up speed.

"We had two pirate attacks over 18 hours," says this crew member, not just the one shown in the film.

The crew didn't know whom to fear more: the pirates or Phillips.

According to this crew member, during the first attack, as two pirate boats came into view, clearly chasing them, Phillips was putting the crew through a fire drill. In the film, it's a security drill.

"We said, 'You want us to knock it off and go to our pirate stations?' " the crew member recalls. "And he goes, 'Oh, no, no, no -- you've got to do the lifeboats drill.' This is how screwed up he is. These are drills we need to do once a year. Two boats with pirates and he doesn't give a s- -t. That's the kind of guy he is."

At first, Phillips maintains this is a lie. "No," he says. "The mate called up and said, 'Do you want to stop the drill?' They [the boats] were seven miles away. There was nothing we could do. We didn't know the exact situation."

But is it true that he ordered the entire drill completed anyway?

"Correct," Phillips says.

"Yeah, seven miles. What's the dif?" the crew member says. "I saw them, and they were closer than that."

The Maersk eventually made a narrow escape, and Phillips ordered it back to its original route.

One of the crew mutinied -- he refused to do it, instead going below deck, sleeping with his boots on and his flashlight by his side, waiting for the inevitable.

At 3 a.m., the pirates radioed the boat to stop; Phillips had left the stern light on and the bridge open. At 7 a.m., came the third and final attack: Four armed Somali pirates stormed the Maersk.

The crew was on their own. "Phillips didn't say what he wanted to do," says the crew member. "His plan [was], when the pirates come aboard, we throw our hands in the air and say, 'Oh, the pirates are here!' The chief engineer said, 'We're going downstairs and locking ourselves in.' One of the mates said, 'Let's go down. We're on our own.' "

They hid in the engine room, in 130 degree heat, for 12 hours. Phillips and three other crew members were held at gunpoint, yet Phillips tells The Post things weren't that dire. "The ship," he says, "was never actually taken."