Hijacking, A

Synopsis: Mikkel (Pilou Asbaek) is a chef aboard a Danish cargo ship when it is hijacked by Somali pirates. The seven men on board must endure a nightmarish time both physically and psychologically as the pirates begin a game of cat and mouse negotiation with Peter Ludvigsen (Soren Malling), CEO of the shipping company.

A Hijacking is a gripping thriller which has impressed me more than anything I've seen in a long while. I say thriller because it is a brilliantly taut and tense story of people’s lives hanging in the balance and yet is not to be confused with the typical Hollywood thriller of excessive plot-driven action. Rather, it is a psychological suspense drama of the most gruelling kind.

Lindholm, who co-wrote the recently-showing brilliant film The Hunt, is solely responsible for the script here. He shows that he knows how to get inside the psyche of his characters and as a director knows how to say much in a spare and subtle way.  He establishes the gentle nature of Mikkel from the film’s opening scene, a very long, unchanging POV shot of the cook talking to his wife about coming home. His kindness is further established as he tends caringly to the needs of the crew with little extra touches in their meals and drinks. Life on the vessel is underscored by the constant thrum and noise of the machinery and all feels secure and normal. Cut to dry land, and the character of the ship’s corporate bosses, especially Peter, is also neatly established as he haggles ruthlessly with strapped Japanese businessmen in a cut-throat negotiation to purchase a vessel below cost.

Again with characteristic restraint Lindholm chooses to portray the actual hijacking not with action movie tropes, but with an underplayed text message that comes to the head office, saying that the Rozen’s alarm has been activated and the ship is under attack. Yet what ensues is gut-wrenching, distressing and nail-biting, to say the least. We see CEO Ludvigsen calling in a professional negotiator Connor Julian (Gary Skjoldmose Porter), and then, in a surge of male ego disregarding that advice, asserting his right to conduct his own negotiation with English-speaking pirate translator Omar (Abdihakin Asgar) aboard the ship The two men go hammer and tongs for a period of months battling over the sum Ludvigsen is prepared to pay to get the safe return of his ship and crew. Meanwhile the families beg and plead with Peter to pay up.

On the Rozen the captives endure squalid cramped conditions with no sanitation and meagre quantities of food, but even worse, the psychological brutality of threats that they will be killed unless their boss pays up. The depiction of life aboard ship is immediate, the camera capturing the torment in such a way that we as an audience feel that we are there. In stark contrast, life in the corporate head office with its crisp shirts and white boards displaying negotiating strategies and predicted costs is one of cold, hard logistics. Yet, once again in contrast to Hollywood, Lindholm doesn't simply pit good against evil. Mikkel's sentimental nature produces an unexpected tragedy and Ludvigsen and as a result his hirelings are brought to question the probity of their corporate ompliance.

A Hijacking is about humanity and its absence and is film-making up there with the best.

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