By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.3 cats
Director: Tobias Lindholm
Starring: Abdihakin Asgar | Dar Salim | Gary Skjoldmose Porter | Pilou Asbæk | Roland Møller | Søren Malling
Original language title: Kapringen
Country: denmark
Year: 2013
Running time: 99
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2216240/combined
Kyle says: “To most Americans, the word ‘hijacking’ is forever associated with 9/11/2001; to many seamen on voyages in the Indian Ocean, it is a fearsome nightmare perpetrated by 21st century Somali pirates, and a potential danger all the time. The word ‘pirates’ conjures a fictional world essentially defined by Hollywood, in which Errol Flynn inspires his crew to feats of valor, and Tyrone Power trades barbs with Maureen O’Hara until she falls for him. In the real world, as this intriguing Danish film demonstrates, a hijacking of a freighter or ocean liner is more about grindingly prolonged negotiations back and forth over four months, pitting the emotional damage done to seamen and their families against corporate bargaining about the value of human lives on that ship. Aside from the captain, the most important employee on any vessel is the cook, since he is the one to prepare food during the long siege. A HIJACKING concentrates on the daily activities of that man, called Mikkel Hartmann, and the corporation’s CEO, called Peter Ludvigsen, who exchanges telephone calls and faxes with the Somali pirates’ negotiator Omar. There is a scene that will likely find favor with audiences, in which the food supply is running out, and one of the Danes catches a huge fish, uniting Danes and Somalis at dinner with drinking and singing. Under the circumstances, there really is no such thing as a happy ending, but director Tobias Lindholm commands our attention with the intricacies of human behavior during monstrous stress. Lindholm was particularly interesting during a Q & A afterward, explaining the incidents upon which his film is based, what happens during negotiations with pirates, and the weight gain and loss endured by Pilou Asbæk in service to his profession. 4 Cats”
Bruce says: “Piracy on the high seas is a current reality. Each year about 1,200 sailors are held hostage in the Indian Ocean by Somali pirates; in 2011, 151 ships were attacked, 25 of which were successful hijackings netting about $160 million in total ransom. Somalia has the longest coast of any African nation. Fishing the Indian Ocean has been the primary industry for hundreds of years. Large foreign vessels are illegally fishing in Somali waters depleting the stock and ruining the livelihood of the Somalis. The waters are also dumping grounds for foreign toxic waste, further destroying the fishing industry. Piracy has become a means to compensate for those turns of events.
A HIJACKING begins with a telephone call from Mikkel Hartmann (Johan Philip Asbæk), the cook on the freighter Rozen, to his wife. We hear that he is in the middle of the Indian Ocean on his way to Mumbai, but his trip home will be delayed two days – a laughable estimate by the end of the film. The action moves quickly to Denmark, where executives of a shipping company are plotting to take advantage of the Japanese in their hour of weakness, the recovery from the 2011 earthquake. Now is the time to strike and buy a shipping vessel on the cheap. ‘Start at $21 million and come in under 15,’ CEO Peter Ludvigsen (Søren Malling) coaches negotiator Lars Vestergaard (Dar Salim). In many films this could be a throwaway scene, but here it sets the moral tone.
“’A high-speed boat’s approaching us,’ a crew member warns the Rozen’s captain. Minutes later the cargo ship is swarming with pirates who promptly lock up the ship’s crew and take over. As soon as the news reaches Copenhagen, Peter Ludvigsen is ready to play hardball. The Board disagrees and hires Connor Julian (Gary Skjoldmose Porter) a consultant specializing in pirate negotiations. Connor’s first steps include lecturing the shipping executives on negotiating do’s and don’ts. ‘The mentality of the Somalis doesn’t allow short negotiations – they are protracted.’ Peter, with the oversized ego of a man in his position, insists that he do the talking. Connor disagrees and warns him, ‘One misstep and the negotiation is ruined.’
“It appears that hijacking is a domain of consulting, for the pirates also have Omar (Abdihakin Asgar), a professional negotiator hired by the Somalis. Omar makes it clear to all that he is a professional, not a pirate.
“On Day 7, Omar demands $15 million. Peter counter offers $250 thousand. By Day 25 Mikkel realizes that he needs to make friends with his captors to stay alive. By Day 39, the pirates use Mikkel to make a plea to Peter to end the negotiations. The Rozen is running out of food. Peter hangs up on Mikkel, ‘They are using psychological pressure and I won’t bend to that.’
“By Day 67 it is obvious that Peter is stuck in a board game mentality. His offer of $900 thousand is rebuked by Omar. ‘You’re going to kill everybody with that kind of offer,’ Omar cautions him. Omar tells Mikkel to call his wife and convince her to talk to Peter. Day 127 finds the Rozen still at sea.
“That A HIJACKING is billed as a thriller says more about the film’s suspenseful nature than any great action taking place. A HIJACKING film is a wonderful psychological drama which educates the viewer from many sides of its core issues. Filmmaker Tobias Lindholm did his homework before shooting began. His considerable research for the film included interviews with many CEOs and hostages, many hours logging on to pirate chatrooms on the Internet, and using the experience of Gary Skjoldmose Porter, who in real life is a hijacking negotiator, not an actor. This all contributes to the film’s gritty realism. It is definitely not a
Hollywood hijacking film. 4.5 cats
“(A HIJACKING screened at the 2013 New Directors/New Films Festival co-sponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln center and the Museum of Modern Art.)”
Jason says: “Unless a filmmaker is exceptional at drawing things out and tossing in new perils when the previous threats are starting to wear thin, compact is a very good thing for a thriller to be. Another exception is when the tension is actually built out of waiting for a response; the audience actually needs to feel it drag a bit then. That’s why a funny thing happens with A Hijacking – its crisp, efficient 99-minute runtime winds up making it feel taut and impressive as one initially watches it, but somewhat hollow as it winds down.
“MV Rozen, a Danish-flagged cargo ship on the way to Mumbai, has been taken by pirates off the coast of Africa. Though advised to hire an outside negotiator by expert Connor Julian (Gary Skjoldmose Porter), CEO Peter Ludvgsen (Søren Malling) takes on the job himself – this is, after all, what he does. On the other end of the satellite-phone link, cook Mikkel Hartmann (Pilou Asbæk) is pressed into service as the voice of the crew by the pirates’ negotiator, Omar (Abdihakin Asgar), since the captain is in rough shape. It is, as all involved soon learn, a situation designed for stalemate.
“The film deserves a fair amount of praise, and a great deal of it deserves to be laid at the feet of the cast. It’s a talented ensemble, and nobody playing a major part takes the easy way out by playing their character as a villain or falters at making their character someone the audience can understand, no matter different his background may be from the viewer or the other characters. Pilou Asbæk plays the guy that the audience can most likely easily relate to, an everyman whose job just happens to be in the middle of the ocean, and he quickly establishes Mikkel as an affable fellow (even if he’s not completely even-tempered) in the scenes before the pirates board, giving him a solid foundation to become frazzled, frightened, and angry later on. Søren Malling does a nifty trick, giving Peter a level of hubris that is undeniable without it crossing the line to arrogance or callousness. It would be easy for this hard-nosed one-percenter to become the ‘real villain’ of the film, but he doesn’t, and that’s not just what writer/director Tobias Lindholm has him do but how Malling does it. Abdihakin Asgar, meanwhile, manages a neat job of playing Omar right on the line between being a reasonable person and being a guy whose job is to seem like a reasonable person. Lindholm doesn’t follow him the way he does Mikkel and Peter, but that we can buy into him when we know his function is impressive.
“Lindholm and his crew also put the movie together very well; there’s not a detail that seems wrong. The ship is crowded and the bulkheads are rusty, and I suspect real-life sailors would say that the water outside looks to be from the right place (the shipboard scenes were shot in Kenya). The Copenhagen settings seem right, a tony corporate headquarters having to accommodate the unexpected, with a conference room being repurposed as crisis control. The steps taken seem right.
“And yet, for all the cast and crew do well, there’s a bit of difficulty in portraying what sort of ordeal this is. Some of it is a lack of follow-through; there’s a pointed comment made early on about how the ship’s fresh water reserves are low to begin with that is never really followed up, for example. More importantly, though, Lindholm seems to have a difficult time showing time passing. It’s no spoiler to say that the hostage situation drags on for a long time, but the characters don’t seem to get thinner or have more unkempt beards. There’s little mention of what landmarks are passing in the outside world other than putting ‘Day X’ titles up on screen, and that’s just a number that seems kind of abstract when the audience needs to see something tangible, or some of the periods when nothing is happening versus when things are inching forward.
“The script can be weak at points, too. A big deal is made early on about how Peter should not conduct the negotiations himself, and the extended standoff seems to support that, but there are few (if any) moments that seem to show him mis-stepping to validate this idea. Much of the ship’s crew just up and disappears for long stretches of the movie, and Lindholm neither explains or makes great use of the ambiguity. And the end of the film has a bit that sits wrong, with someone doing something uncharacteristically foolish for the express purpose of muddling how the the audience feels about the resolution.
“Sure, maybe those bits in the script are based on actual accounts and real-life events aren’t as purposeful as scenes in a movie. It wouldn’t surprise me. It doesn’t make A Hijacking a bad movie at all, or even a below-average one; it’s well-enough put together to be satisfying as one watches it, even though it’s not unreasonable to want a little more afterward. 3.75 cats
“Seen 26 April 2013 in Somerville Theatre #4 (Independent Film Festival Boston, digital)”
Diane says: “Other Chloturdians have reviewed Tobias Lindholm’s A HIJACKING, a Danish film about a freighter’s capture by Somali pirates and the negotiations that ensue over several months. For me, the best aspect of HIJACKING is the parallels in the grueling experiences of the ship’s cook (a hostage) and the shipping company’s CEO. As the film moves back and forth between the ship’s filthy cabin and the CEO’s upper-story glassed-in office, the two men track fatigue and strain, love and ire, courage and guilt. 5 cats, with noms for film and actors.”