Review: 'A Hijacking' Is a Cautionary Tale for CEOs

Rarely, if ever, has an awful day at the office made for a better movie than A Hijacking, a Danish export now in limited theatrical release in the U.S. The film follows the travails of the MV Rozen and its seven-man crew as they’re overtaken by Somali pirates out on the Indian Ocean. The principals are the Rozen’s cook, Mikkel; Peter, the executive in Denmark who’s in charge of the vessel; and Omar, the translator and negotiator for the pirates. In the hands of writer-director Tobias Lindholm, who was a writer on the BBC hit Borgen, the tedium of being held for months on a ship becomes unbearably tense. And Peter (Søren Malling) and his associates, thousands of miles from the action, become hostages in their own right, after he insists, against the advice of a crisis specialist, to negotiate for his captive employees himself.

Mikkel (Pilou Asbæk) is the first to win our sympathy. A devoted husband and dad, he’s a lichen-bearded Everyman, eager to get home for his daughter’s birthday. In a Hollywood version, Mikkel could be counted on to cultivate some heartening or eccentric Birdman of Alcatraz-type coping mechanism; and there is a scene when he brings the pirates and crew together over a freshly caught fish. But Mikkel remains a simpleton and a victim. We suffer along with him as he cracks under the pressure of being a pawn in Peter’s and Omar’s months-long haggling.