A Hijacking

Filmmaker Tobias Lindholm's decidedly low-key A Hijacking depicts the seizure of a Danish ship by Somali pirates, capturing the back-and-forth between the hijackers and the ship's owner in a naturalistic fashion. Although punctuated by occasional dramatic outbursts—both onboard the vessel between hostages and their captors, and back in Copenhagen where the CEO of the line must deal with the crewmen's families and his own board of directors—the story is more about the long stretches of tedium that lie between. Company chief Peter Ludvigsen (Søren Malling), a fastidious, deliberate expert at outmaneuvering business competitors, begins a long, grueling series of ship-to-shore conversations with pirate translator Omar (Abdihakin Asgar), while ship's cook Mikkel Hartmann (Pilou Asbæk) prepares food for both his mates and their captors and becomes the hostage closest to Omar. As the situation drags on—captions show the passage of days—the mood on all sides becomes increasingly desperate, although Lindholm continues to hold back, allowing the story to unfold in rigorously straightforward fashion. A strong optional purchase. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include the behind-the-scenes featurettes “Behind the Movie,” “The Director,” “Research,” “The Chief Engineer,” and “The Actors” (15 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a solid extras package for an intermittently engaging slow-burn thriller.] (F. Swietek)