A Hijacking

A Danish film set in the Indian Ocean and in Copenhagen. A cargo ship is taken by pirates off Somalia. There are seven men aboard. Mikkel is the cook. The news reaches the company's head office. Peter is the chief executive. He is known for hard bargaining. A consultant comes in. He is an expert in hostage negotiation and gives one piece of advice: do not hurry. Peter wants to run the negotiation himself. From there the film moves between two settings. On one side the ship. Heat, filth, rationed food and armed men. On the other a meeting room. A white table, a telephone, coffee and figures. The pirates' number is very high. The company offers a low one. The gap does not close for months. The narrative gives the time directly. A day count appears on screen and the number grows. What the narrative is interested in is not piracy but bargaining: its idea is that a man's life becomes a figure on a table and that both sides treat it as business. The pirates' interpreter is Omar. He does not count himself a pirate; he says he only translates. A telephone call is made to Mikkel's family and that scene is one of the company's tactics. Peter changes. He is cool at the start; as the months pass he cannot sleep and cannot decide. The narrative builds no scene of violence. The tension comes entirely from waiting. The ending is not a rescue. It was shot on a real cargo ship. Real seamen played some of the parts and the negotiation consultant was played by a man who does that work. Tobias Lindholm wrote and directed. Pilou Asbæk, Søren Malling, Dar Salim and Roland Møller are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes realist Danish cinema and undemonstrative tension. Who it is not for: anyone expecting action; the narrative is deliberately slow and almost entirely talk.