Today's Mini-Review: Kapringen

Kapringen: ****/*****, or 7/10

Harrowing tale of a hijacked ship's crew on one side and the ship's company negotiators on the other. A Danish cargo ship is commandeered by Somali pirates who demand 15 million euros ransom. The company's CEO (Søren Malling), against sound advice from a hired expert in hijacking, decides to engage in negotiations with the pirates himself and soon finds himself in too deep where his personal emotions are concerned, which increasingly causes escalations in this dire situation. Meanwhile, the crew of the ship, including the cook Mikkel (Pilou Asbæk), must cope with psychological and violent abuse by the Somalis, while also suffering months of boredom and unhygienic living conditions, including a severe lack of food. However, they form an unlikely bond with their captors, who don't prove to be so inhuman at all (and rather hungry too), just poor, uneducated people driven to extreme action for the most part. Tense scenes of Mikkel being forced to cook for the pirates at gunpoint are interspersed with surprisingly uplifting scenes of the hostages and the Somalis engaging in boisterous song and dance to celebrate the capture and cooking of a fish. However, director Tobias Lindholm makes it perfectly clear that every act of sympathy and generosity the captives receive can be taken from them just as swiftly by their captors due to the ever prolonged negotiation procedures the CEO makes them live through, as he is stalling for time in an effort to bring down the amount of money demanded by the pirates to a more affordable level. Of course the uncertainty suffered by the hostages' families and his decreasing levels of success soon make even him hesitant about a happy outcome, as negotiations seem to rapidly spiral towards a boiling point. Kapringen is a terrific and terrifying movie, executed very realistically. Despite the solid performances this distills from the lead actors, at times realism does hinder the movie's pace since little happens, as it would over the course of four months sitting on a ship that goes nowhere while negotiations have turned so sour that both parties hardly communicate anymore. Nevertheless, the ever more critical situation onboard ship, where the crew has to deal with bored and impatient pirates, does result in many a suspenseful scene, made all the more disturbing by Asbæk's compelling acting. This film is made by the creators of the Danish hit series Borgen and, apart from the good writing of course, it shows: half the cast was featured on that TV-series, so occasionally you start asking yourself, why isn't Danish prime minister Birgitte Nyborg getting herself involved in this affair to save the day?