A Hijacking (2012)

“We can’t rush these people. Time is a Western thing. It means nothing to them.” – Connor Julian

Number of Times Seen – 1 (28 Jun 2020)

Brief Synopsis – After the crew of a cargo ship are taken hostage by Somali pirates, the company that owns the ship tries to negotiate for their release.

My Take on it – This is a film that I heard about a few months ago and was interested in seeing how effective they could be in showing the ordeals of hostages and hostage negotiators over a relatively long period of time.

Unfortunately, this film is told in a very slow moving fashion which makes much of it come cross as being quite boring despite the fact that this is meant to be a thriller.

The various characters aren’t developed well enough and that makes it even harder to care or sympathize with anything they do here.

The film shows some prolonged torture of some of the characters yet since they are mostly under developed, it’s quite hard to care about or sympathize with any of them along the way.

The film tries to show how these kind of negotiation can effect the crew and negotiators, yet they never find their stride which would help make it even more enjoyable to watch.

This movie does have its moments tho along the way that help make things worth while to watch because some of the characters are able to do various dramatic and heroic acts along the way that help give the viewer a better understanding of things despite the fact that it is all done in very subtle ways.

Bottom Line – Pretty boring and slow moving thrilling that fails to stay interesting due to the way things are drawn out. The characters are all underdeveloped and that hurts things too much because even after seeing some of the hostages suffer for so long it still isn’t easy to care or sympathize with them on more than a superficial level. The film’s attempt to show how these kind of negotiations are conducted is also problematic because it isn’t able to find a way to really stay enjoyable to watch. The film does have its moments tho and it is worth watching at least once in order to appreciate some of the subtle dramatic and heroic scenes that help make us get a better understanding of things even if it is mostly done in a slow way.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – To make the phone call scenes between Søren Malling and Pilou Asbæk appear authentic on film, director Tobias Lindholm filmed those scenes as actual conference calls with Malling being in Denmark and Asbæk being in Kenya. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy (5/10)