Kapringen

A Danish cargo ship, MV Rozen, is hijacked by Somali pirates en route to Mumbai. The pirates, led by Omar (Abdihakin Asgar), who claims only to be the negotiator, take the crew of seven hostage and demand a ransom of $19 million in return for the ship and their lives. After an unnerving silence lasting days, Omar engages Peter Ludvigsen (Søren Malling), CEO of the shipping company, in a psychological game of negotiation that shreds the nerves of both Peter and the hostages.

Kapringen (A Hijacking) focuses on Peter, who shuns the offer of a trained negotiator, and three of his crew: Mikkel (Pilou Asbæk), the ship's cook; Jan (Roland Møller), an engineer; and the captain (Keith Pearson). With pressure from the board to resolve the situation, the burden of facing distraught family members and his own guilt at being unable to solve the crises with an instant payment, Peter struggles to gain the upper hand where his failure will mean the deaths of his men.

Tobias Lindholm, who co-wrote 2012's excellent Jagten (The Hunt) writes and directs this critically acclaimed film with a similar approach, refusing to spoon feed us with gimmickry or overstated episodes, instead preferring to leave us to join the dots, to imagine what is happening in the hours, days and weeks that Kapringen passes over. Lindholm understands that our fears are greatest when we cannot see or define them. As soon as the monster in a horror film is revealed, it ceases to be terrifying, and so it is in Kapringen. It's just that the monster isn't a vampire; it's isolation, the loss of basic human rights and the constant terror of impending execution.

As the weeks unfold, we make assumptions about the nature of the horror that occurs behind the locked cabin doors. For much of the time we don't know what is occurring as Lindholm exercises the same power as Omar. When he's revealed all he wants, he simply hangs up, cuts away, to leave us wondering. The only palpable evidence is Mikkel's increased shuffling and enhanced stoop as he cowers in the hijackers' presence and withdraws into himself.

Asbæk's performance is complete. We watch him decay in mind and body and can almost smell the sweat and fear on him. His resolve evaporates and he clings to any hope or kindness even though it comes from his tormentors.

Conversely, Asgar is cold as Omar, clearly the only character enjoying the experience. He's been here numerous times and has perfected the duel personas of good cop/bad cop offering kindness and threatening murder as if he, himself, is the victim. It is a chilling situation that feels too real to be entirely comfortable and does for sailing what Jaws did for swimming almost 40 years ago.

There is an oddness in the performance of Gary Skjoldmose-Porter as Conor Julian, the maritime hijack expert called in by the shipping company. With no other listings on IMDb but a job as Corporate Security Manager at Clipper Group, he appears to have been recruited to 'be' the adviser rather than cast to 'play' him. His (lack of?) acting prowess jars at times but the impression he gives of improvising his advice as the actors around him play their own parts in the crisis adds a certain depth and reality to Kapringen.

Malling (A Royal Affair and TV's The Killing and Borgen) gives a very restrained, but moving performance as a man who takes control through his arrogance but also needs to take responsibility so as not to feel impotent. Attacked from every side in subtle ways, he somehow manages to absorb the extreme stress and when he does shows signs of buckling, it is understanding and a relief to see that he is human.

Kapringen is a film with little action and barely a raised voice but the violence is unsettling and you'll find yourself wondering what on earth sane men and women are doing sailing around the world with such risks.

Kapringen is a film you'll struggle to find at the multiplexes so make the effort to seek it out at an arts cinema. Or wait for the DVD. Just see it.

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Danish filmmaker Tobias Lindholm is steadily making a name for himself; daring filmmaker not afraid to take chances and it pays off in this one.

Kapringen (A Hijacking) is sort of the antithesis of a Hollywood hostage drama devoid of tired clichés and the predictable story lines we -- as an audience of generational film-goers -- have become too accustomed to.

It features an incredibly in-depth character study from the two main characters: a chef aboard the hijacked ship and the CEO of the shipping company remotely negotiating with the Somali pirates dealing with the incredible pressure and moral dilemmas of the situation. Also the supporting characters are depicted with great nuances such as sympathy and even humanity.

The plot is tight and flows nicely as does the tempo of the film. Cinematography beautifully emphasizes the realism and atmosphere of the film, and even the score is wonderfully understated yet fully appropriate.

One of the most suspenseful films of the year, no doubt, perhaps it embodies everything that Argo should have been about.

As a side note, the person who gave this a horrible review also gave The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2009) a perfect 10/10 (go ahead and click his other reviews if you don't believe me). Take from that what you will.

A highly recommendable film for great acting, directing and general storytelling. Bravo.

This hostage drama shows two different worlds: the despair of the crew on a vessel that has been hijacked by Somalian pirates, and the concern of the management of their shipping company in Copenhagen. The juxtaposition of these two worlds, connected by a dramatic event, is the strong cinematographic concept this film is built on.

The two worlds are very different. The crew on the ship is terrified by armed pirates they can't understand. They are locked up in a small room, where fear, heat, boredom and lack of food slowly drive them crazy. The managers in their design offices are dressed in tailored suits, wear cuff-links and drive limousines. Their fear is different, but far from negligible. The CEO chooses to personally negotiate with the pirates, and thus takes on the responsibility for the lives of his crew members. He is under great pressure from their families, from his board, and from the possibility that the press will report about the hijacking.

Director Lindholm focuses on two characters: the CEO of the shipping company and the cook on the vessel. The hijacking takes its toll on both of them, in different ways. The film switches from the clean offices in Copenhagen, where the CEO negotiates about the ransom, to the ship where the cook lives in continuous fear of being killed. The psychological approach of the film makes for great drama. Plus: this is a Danish film, so you can be sure the focus is on subtle human interaction, not on spectacular action scenes. The fact that the moment of the hijacking itself is not even shown, tells it all.

Unbearably tense and anti-aesthetic.

For his second directorial feature, Tobias Lindholm (co-writer of Jagten) delivers the kind of indifferent, matter-of-fact realism not experienced since the early days of Dogme 95. And because it cuts through all the fluff and artifice that has invaded commercial films without compromising momentum as a situationist thriller, one must concede that Kapringen has upped the ante on Danish rebellion against the Hollywood system.

The refusal to include actual scenes of the hijacking in a film specifically titled "A Hijacking" is no accident.

A cargo ship MV Rozen is hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. Among the eight men crew taken hostage is Mikkel (Pilou Asbæk), the ship's cook. A translator for the pirates issues demand for $15M in exchange for release. But back in Copenhagen, CEO of the shipping company Peter (Søren Malling) learns that gaining the upper hand demands patience. And so negotiations play out in silence like a sociopathic Fischer-Spassky game: cold, calculated, unyielding.

I can't think of any movie in which I have wanted so much to resist and cease watching, yet fail to do so because it has a quality so raw, unsympathetic and intuitive. In keeping with Lindholm's debut feature (a prison drama "R"); Kapringen is filmed on location, in chronological sequence and on board a sea freighter that was hijacked in the Indian ocean. Casting also features a real life hostage negotiator as the central figure and naturally, Somali pirates.

Arguably, mechanical reproduction of genuine conditions doesn't guarantee a convincing film but in this case, it does — Kapringen looks so suitably stained with normality that one instantly recognizes the absence of gimmicky aesthetics. Unmanipulated (or to be PC about words, "seemingly so"), you resonate with the film's fabric of reality while searching for something more, and in the process, gain access into psychological domains that underpin both Peter and Mikkel.

It's not for nothing that Lindholm went through great lengths to replicate an uncomfortable, pressing scenario because the film offers reflection on an overlooked form of terrorism. Corporations may be showing it to employees as a resource on how to respond during such crises, but Kapringen's master stroke — is the revelation of an impasse between the moral versus the practical. There is no payoff at the end of this film, it is one the most sophisticated vérités I have seen, the meta-argument leaves you deliberating, and the film takes off like a thinker on paradox.

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An act of piracy brings together 3 different worlds.

1. The pirates. People who live in extreme poverty and see no benefit from the world trade that profits buyers or sellers of cargo and of course ship-owners and recruit fellow famished locals telling them that there's money in attacking these big ships.

2. The sailors. Those who spent up to months a time at sea as cargo is carried from A to B, with no skills in dealing with hostile invaders on board.

3. The ship management company. The people who either own the vessel in question or run it on behalf of the owner.

Pirates expect owners to dig deep in their pockets and by an unexpected takeover of a vessel as well as convincing the crew that they will die, the pirates hope that the owners would give in to their demands.

The owners, as it has become clear in this film, being all suited and booted and speaking from a comfortable corporate environment are trying to bargain with the pirates. Bargaining is all they do; they bargain with shipyards, charterers, insurers etc. Without discounting for a minute that they must bargain otherwise the demands will balloon out of proportion, they are unaware of the strain the crew are going through.

Interesting stimulating and highly watchable this is an interesting documentary that adds to one's perspective on a matter very known, but not acted upon although it should be pointed out that piracy and poverty go hand in hand. If world authorities want to act on piracy, they must act on poverty first.