96% A Hijacking

All Critics (82) | Top Critics (24) | Fresh (79) | Rotten (3)

A nail-biter of a thriller that eschews conventional thrills, Tobias Lindholm's verit?-like tale of a Danish cargo ship hijacked by Somali pirates is rivetingly low-key.

A finely spun tale that eschews sensationalism to focus on the human toll on the captives, their families and their employers back home.

This isn't an action picture; it's a picture about the suspense and terror of inaction.

Gripping and tightly focused.

Lindholm rations the meat and potatoes of plot to keep us captive at the bargaining table. It's a sadistic ploy that produces a real payoff.

A Hijacking is one of those perfect films that crop up every few years to prove that with true artistry, even the most exhausted genre can yield something new, rich, and strange.

As well as the film's almost documentary realism (it's required viewing for shipping personnel), here the brief but telling extras show off Lindholm's dedication to accuracy.

In A Hijacking, we watch as talks break down -- at one point, the two parties are communicating by fax -- and are never certain how it will play out.

The result is not as dramatically neat as a Hollywood version of this material might be, and a twist at the end has a dark irony no mainstream film would dare.

As immediate and as hard-hitting as a punch in the gut, sucking you into a tension-filled situation in the corporate offices and on the high seas.

While there's a certain tautness to the result, the many longueurs along the way almost make one yearn for an infusion of good old Hollywood pizzazz.

A tense, gripping drama filled with psychological showdowns from Danish writer-director Tobias Lindholm.

... has an embedded feel without being a real-life report or documentary at all. It's a fictional film that hits both with blunt force and a surprising amount of complexity.

A Hijacking is more about one incident than about how it relates universally, but in thoughtfully exploring the specifics and emotions of that incident, Lindholm is able to show how modern life sometimes seems devoid of any accord.

A lean, stressful nail-biter, smart, well-written, nicely shot and wonderfully performed.

[Omar and Mikkel are] like Marcus and McTeague in Frank Norris's 1899 novel, handcuffed to each other in a struggle that could well end in mutually assured destruction.

Tobias Lindholm's slow-burning thriller makes a bid for verisimilitude that extends well beyond the use of natural light and handheld cameras.

Though the acting in "A Hijacking" is superb, the film is strictly a "follow-the-dots" offering. This is not entertainment. It is another overwhelmingly depressing foray into corporate greed.

"A Hijacking", if eligible, is an early contender for Best Foreign film at the 2014 Academy Awards.

It's an effective piece of work that will leave you longing for a shower, a nap, and a warm meal.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/a_hijacking/

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