A Hijacking
A Hijacking Image
Metascore
82

Universal acclaim - based on 26 Critics What's this?

User Score
7.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 10 Ratings

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  • Summary: After hijacking the crew of a Danish cargo ship, Somali pirates engage in tense and lengthy negotiations with officials in Copenhagen.

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 25 out of 26
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 26
  3. Negative: 0 out of 26
  1. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Farran Smith Nehme
    Jun 20, 2013
    100
    A Hijacking is Lindholm’s second feature as director; he’s also worked with such austere Danes as Thomas Vinterberg of Dogme 95 fame. What he’s learned, it seems, is how to strip away distractions, and let character become suspense, as well as destiny.
  2. The Playlist
    Reviewed by: Oliver Lyttelton
    Mar 18, 2013
    100
    The film isn’t a white knuckle ride, and the pacing can be slow at times, but this is one of those cases where that’s sort of the point, and you certainly don’t begrudge it. A Hijacking is an absorbing, highly moving film.
  3. St. Louis Post-Dispatch
    Reviewed by: Joe Williams
    Jul 12, 2013
    88
    Director Lindholm is a graduate of the Dogma school, and he is able to maintain tension with a documentary camera technique, virtually no music and minimal on-screen theatrics.
  4. Variety
    Reviewed by: Guy Lodge
    Mar 18, 2013
    80
    Hostage thrillers are all-too-often shrill affairs, with clock-watching screenwriters wringing maximum melodrama from spiraling disorder. Not so Tobias Lindholm’s superb A Hijacking, which actually grows more chillingly subdued as its nightmare scenario unfolds.
  5. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    Jun 17, 2013
    80
    It’s an unshowy, quietly intense drama with grace notes in every scene — and a hellish punch.
  6. The Telegraph
    Reviewed by: Robbie Collin
    May 14, 2013
    80
    Flies buzz, sweat trickles, negotiations continue, and you feel your breath dry up.
  7. Time Out London
    Reviewed by: Cath Clarke
    May 14, 2013
    60
    A Hijacking’ is gripping in the way the best Danish TV is – in its no-frills authenticity.

See all 26 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 6
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 6
  3. Negative: 0 out of 6
  1. gregga
    Aug 18, 2013
    10
    The suspense is not just carried out between the hijacked ship crew and their captors, but also back at shipping HQ where the CEO declines advice to use an outside negotiator and instead installs himself as the mouthpiece in direct talks with the "translator" of the Somali pirates. It's nail biting stuff.… Expand
  2. raydff
    Jun 27, 2013
    9
    The amount of intimacy created by director Tobias Lindholm resulted in only one of the finest releases of the year right here, led by a splendid performance from Pilou Asbaek, who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite emerging young actors in recent years.… Expand
  3. arssonist
    Sep 22, 2013
    9
    I wish there was a way for users to delete reviews. I thought this was a great film but I want to delete the review under this profile, and so I write 150 words.… Expand
  4. theseparator
    Sep 22, 2013
    9
    I have traversed the Gulf of Aden twice, the piece of ocean between Yemen and Somalia notorious for it’s pirates. I was somewhat familiar withth the methods that pirates use when commandeering ships to demand ransoms, but to appreciate the events of Tobias Lindholm’s A Hijacking no sailing experience is necessary.

    Even though the film is a representation of how an actual Hijacking would take place: Quick, precise, and severe, the film spends little time on the mechanics of how the pirates actually board. This is not an action film. We learn that a high-speed boat has approached and boarded effortlessly, that’s it. More important to the film is what happens while the pirates are onboard.

    The first thing the pirates do, even before starting negotiations for money, is demand food. The ship’s cook, played brilliantly by Danish actor Pilou Asbaek, becomes the pirate’s gopher, and an ad-hoc negotiator between the pirates and the ship’s owners.

    Conditions onboard are miserable. Shocking even. The cook and 2 other crewmen are kept in a small closet for weeks, four other crewmembers below deck. They’re not allowed out to relive themselves in a toilet; they must use a corner of the room. My training on ships did not include images like these. There was no training about how to interact with maniacs with automatic weapons.

    The job of casting the actors that play the pirates is ingenious. All the actor’s performances are in the Somali language (I think). Their interactions with the ship’s crew are so authentic that I’m guessing none of these men were trained actors. Probably just local Somali men recruited by the casting director, but I can’t verify this. If they were actors, they’re the best I’ve ever seen.

    Contentious negotiations between the ship’s owners and the pirates leave questions. The hijacking ends without incident, almost, but the negotiations take months. Could the ship’s owner have done more? Given in to the pirate’s demands sooner? Gotten the crew home faster? Undoubtedly questions that need to be asked of the real hijackings that take place routinely in the Gulf, where we get little more than a single paragraph in the news about some, and no more.    … Expand
  5. netflic
    Jun 24, 2013
    8
    A Danish movie which is not an action movie as it's name might suggest but rather a suspense movie.

    A cargo ship is taken over by Somali pi    rates in the Indian Ocean.
    Ransom negotiations between the pirates and the company owner are the focus of the movie.

    Acting of two leads is superb. I think it's another Oscar contender.    … Expand
  6. foxgrove
    Jun 21, 2013
    7
    Another Danish success which for the most part is directed with spare economy (we don't even get to see a big battle as the hijackers take over the ship). The film is generally absorbing although not edge of the seat stuff. It's ace card, however, is in the hypnotic and multi layered performance of Soren Malling as the C E O of the company whose ship is taken. Whether demonstrating authority, rage or empathy he is central to one's involvement with what is happening on screen. The movie itself could have been tightened up slightly in the mid section where hijackers and hijacked become tentatively and temporarily attuned to one and other. Also the last scene on the ship is both irritating and disappointing in its predictability. Overall, though, definitely worth a watch.… Expand

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