The cargo ship MV Rozen is heading for harbour when it is hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. Amongst the men on board are the ship's cook Mikkel (Pilou Asbæk, Borgen) and the engineer Jan (Roland Møller), who along with the rest of the seamen are taken hostage in a cynical game of life and death. With the demand for a ransom of millions of dollars a psychological drama unfolds between the CEO of the shipping company (Søren Malling The Killing, Borgen) and the Somali pirates.
A brilliant piece of scary, authentic-looking realism... Lindholm keeps the tension going and never descends into crude melodrama. As a psychological drama, this is surely one of the best of the year - Evening Standard
Ruthlessly plausible thriller... As tensions escalate and conditions deteriorate, Lindholm s control is so rigorous that it s easy to forget you re watching fiction - Total Film
Nerve-shredding high seas procedural... To find such a radical riposte to the Hollywood thriller and a rehabilitation of a decades-old stereotype is a genuine surprise - Little White Lies
The very antithesis of Hollywood... This hostage drama from Denmark has the same DNA (Dark National Angst) as its television serials: it is complicated, it is intelligent - The Independent
Vigorously intelligent hostage thriller... Lindholm is the writer of the acclaimed Danish television series Borgen, and he infuses every frame of his second film with the slow-burn, high-tension pungency of a particularly addictive DVD box set The Telegraph
The little details all ring true... Lindholm spins an exacting drama out of a crisis on this deft, verite-style account of Somali piracy in the Indian ocean. Full credit to A Hijacking for resisting the siren-call of Hollywood histrionics in favour of the nuts-and-bolts - The Guardian
A slow burner; intense, utterly engrossing and believable... When a Danish cargo vessel is hijacked, the crew face a lengthy ordeal while company reps and a hostage negotiator embark on tense negotiations. The ship s cook is the most useful to his captors, who manipulate him mercilessly - Empire
