Screenings

A Hijacking
As much as I appreciate the Danish-made film “A Hijacking,” I feel it necessary to let you know this is not a summertime movie for everyone. Instead of a fast-paced, shoot-’em-up with explosive special effects, throbbing music and sound editing, or a predictable rom-com, we have a slowly evolving, claustrophobic, calculated and very realistic psychological thriller.
The film opens on board the Danish ship MV Rosen off the coast of East Africa, where the smiling and casually-dressed cook, Mikkel  (Johan Philip Asbaek), is preparing and serving omelettes “just the way you like them—with paprika” to a couple of his fellow crewmembers.  At the same time, the trimmed, manicured, immaculately dressed, stone-faced shipping magnate Peter Ludvigsen (Soren Maling) is negotiating with the Japanese and using the tragedy of the tsunami and nuclear meltdown to his company’s advantage.
After the successful end to the negotiations, the CEO receives a message saying the ship has been stormed by trigger-happy Somali pirates and the crew is held hostage. The company calls in a professional hostage advisor (Gary Skkoldemose Porter), and the pirates place an English-speaking agent named Omar (Abdehakin Asgar) to negotiate by phone and fax. The original ransom demand is set at $15 million.
The company’s consultant advises hiring a professional, non-involved negotiator as well, but the CEO prides himself on his skill on “making a deal,” and he insists on staying in charge. Meanwhile, the cook makes a call to the company saying the crew is being threatened, the Captain has become very ill, and they want to come home—now.
Advising the cook to “call me Peter,” he tells the terrified man that he will “do everything possible” to get the crew home safely. Then he tells Omar that the $15 million demand is ridiculous and offers $250,000.
Omar hangs up.
And thus begins a slow, arduous, fear-inducing thriller like nothing you have ever seen before.
Director Tobias Lindholm artfully utilizes the “less-is-more” technique. We never see the pirate attack and capture of the ship. We only know what is happening onboard through the eyes of the cook and the calls and faxes received in the air-conditioned Copenhagen company’s office. We hear the advice from the company’s hired professional: “Don’t give into their demands—they will only see it as a signal to ask for more.” We hear Omar insisting he is not a pirate—just a hired negotiator who also wants to get this over and head home. But we also get clues that Omar might be much more involved than he says and that the cool, detached CEO is experiencing intense emotions beyond his control.
What eventually happens to the easy-going cook and the buttoned-down CEO resonates powerfully with (some) of the audience, but others will become bored with the pacing and distressed with the distinctly non-Hollywood ending.
On a final note, I would like to add that the film is an accurate portrayal of the modern-day pirate threats to global transport. One of my writing tasks for Petaluma’s World Trade Press was to research and create “Alerts” for business travelers. I discovered that piracy and kidnapping for ransom are big business for criminal gangs (including those notorious Somali pirates). As a result, most major corporations quietly carry KR&E (kidnap, ransom and extortion) insurance, and global air and sea transport and logistics companies regularly include piracy as part of their maritime insurance coverage.
Privately, insurance companies credit their secrecy about piracy as greatly reducing the frequency of hijacking for ransom, and although an insurance firm is never mentioned in the film, I assume the “they” who recommend hiring the professional hostage advisor are the insurance underwriters. In addition, the CEO goes out of his way to follow standard insurance company procedures by making sure his employees maintain the utmost secrecy about the hijacking.
 
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