A Hijacking

There’s no hijacking scene in A Hijacking, a razor-wire Danish drama that’s otherwise as straightforward as its title. That’s just as well. Any more tension in writer-director Tobias Lindholm’s tightly wound anxiety machine would be almost physically unbearable. A ship is boarded, an office is raided from afar, but it’s the viewer who finally yields.

Aboard the cargo vessel Roszen, we meet Mikkel Hartmann (Pilou Asbaek), the ship’s cook, whose wife and daughter are ready for the end of this latest voyage. Mikkel’s distant employer is shipping CEO Peter (Soren Malling), an adept dealmaker whose confidence seems absolute. We’ll see.

At the home office, news arrives that the Roszen has fallen to machine-gun-toting Somali pirates. Peter wants to handle negotiations himself: “It’s my job to bring back my men.” A high ransom is met with an insulting offer, translations prove tricky, and time begins its dreadful unspooling. It’s a staring contest as art, and it’s very satisfying.