For our day of ‘H’ in the Alphabet challenge, it’s off to a ship called the ‘Rosen’ which falls victim to a hijacking by Somali pirates in the 2012 danish film ‘A Hijacking’ (or Kapringen to use it’s original danish title).

The ship is a merchant ship with a small crew of 7 men employed by the danish shipping company and heading to India when Somali pirates take the ship and hold the crew hostage for ransom.

Aboard the ship, as one of the crew is Mikkel Hartmann (Pilou Asbaek), the ship’s cook, who has been making his way back to his wife and young daughter.

 

The CEO of the company Peter Ludvigsen (played by Soren Malling), an accomplished business negotiator, takes responsibility for communicating with the spokesman for the pirates – a man called ‘Omar’ (Abdihakin Asgar) . This is directly against the advice of Connor Julian – a specialist in handling kidnap and ransom cases who fears that any displays of emotion by the CEO could result in a breakdown of negotiations and worse for the hostages.

The film plays out swapping between following Ludvigsen as he negotiates with Omar, and Mikkel as he and the crew try to survive the conditions on board.  We watch the pressure build on the CEO and the situation take its toll on the mental health of Mikkel.

Its a claustrophobic drama riddled with tension and the film keeps you on edge throughout.  The handheld camera work keeps a sense of off balance and unease.

Its certainly worthy of a watch if you’re in the mood for a tense thriller.