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A Hijacking Review
2013, 99 minutes
Rated R for language
Written and directed by Tobias Lindholm, A Hijacking is a master class in
suspense and direction. Picked up by
Magnolia Films for U.S. distribution (no release date has been set yet), A Hijacking is the story of a ship that gets hijacked by
Somali pirates and the negotiation process that takes place to save the ship’s crew.
A Hijacking is not entirely true,
but is based in reality. Director Tobias
Lindholm said that he doesn’t believe the truth exists about the Indian Ocean
hijackings, but if his film feels like it is about the people involved in the
hijackings, he has succeeded. And Lindholm has succeeded. What distinguishes A Hijacking from most other new thrillers based in reality are its
subtlety and lack of cinematic flourishes.
Unlike the 2012 Best Picture-winner Argo
(a good film in its own right), another true-life thriller, A Hijacking’s conclusion doesn’t resort
to clichéd suspense techniques or a thundering score. Instead, Lindholm chooses to use little to no
music and grounds the finale in realism.
That isn’t to say that there is no emotion tied to it, there most
certainly is, but it is the power of the actors’ faces that made me feel for
them rather than a loud score and impressive camerawork.
Lindholm made a couple of other very smart directorial choices
when making this film: he used simple frame composition and camerawork, and he
chose to show the negotiation process. I
suspect other directors would have simply shown what transpired on the ship,
but Lindholm knows that without sensationalism, the story of the hijacked ship
alone would be an exercise in boredom. Depicting
the negotiation process shows the stress that negotiators are under, in this
case, the CEO (Søren Malling) of the company who owns the ship, and raises the
stakes substantially.
In his scripting of the film, Tobias Lindholm seemed to make
sure that every situation was plausible and that every scene was included in
the film to propel it forward. This
helps keep the running time down to a brisk 99 minutes and makes viewing this
film compelling.
The acting in A Hijacking is
superb. As the ship’s cook and one of
the film’s lead characters, Mikkel Hartmann, Johan Philip Asbæk gives a
powerful performance. He shows much of
his emotion in his face. Needless to
say, his performance is not showy and is so frighteningly realistic that I
forgot that I was watching an actor. As Peter
C. Ludvigsen, the CEO, Søren Malling gives an intense performance of a man trying
to keep strong under extreme stress. He,
like Hartmann, does not give a showy performance, but rather a restrained one.
Overall, A Hijacking
is a masterful film; smart, economical, yet complex. I was very impressed by the care and craft
that was put into this film and would highly recommend that everyone see it
when it shows during the New Directors/New Films Festival at the Walter Reade Theater on Friday, March 22 at 6:15 pm, and at the
MoMA Titus 1 at 8:30 pm on Sunday, March 24. Tickets are on sale now.
4/4
-Joshua Handler
Review also featured in the Washington Square News: http://wsnhighlighter.com/2013/03/21/a-hijacking-a-powerful-film-about-the-indian-ocean-hijackings/
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