Critic’s pick: ‘A Hijacking’ ratchets up the tension

“A Hijacking” is as lean, focused and to the point as its title. A cargo ship is hijacked in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and this expertly done, ultra-tense Danish thriller places you in the middle of the action in the most intense way. Gripping from first frame to last, the film unfolds on two fronts: the vessel, of course, but also in the Copenhagen offices of the company that owns it, where the firm’s chief executive, Peter Ludvigsen (Soren Malling), deals with the complexities of negotiating a multimillion-dollar ransom with Somali pirates. That negotiating gets increasingly complicated as the pirates, who hold all the cards on the ship, play mind games with their hostages, adroitly manipulating them so they’ll pressure the company to play things the pirates’ way. “A Hijacking” is written and directed by Tobias Lindholm, best known as the co-writer on Thomas Vinterberg’s “The Hunt” as well as the crack Danish TV series “Borgen.”

—Kenneth Turan

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