Starring: Pilou Asbæk, Søren Malling, Abdihakin Asgar
Serving on board a cargo ship heading towards India, the
ship’s Danish cook Mikkel (Asbæk) becomes one of the skeleton crew who are held
hostage when a gang of pirates board the ship. Meanwhile back in Denmark, a
businessman (Malling) who works for the shipping company decides to head the
ransom negotiations for the crew’s safe return.
One of the major central conceits of Kapringen is that
whilst the hijacking is an important element to the plot (important enough to
be the title) you never actually see the hijacking in of itself. This has been
done before however, such as with Reservoir Dogs (1992) (where we see the build-up
and aftermath of a diamond heist but virtually nothing of the heist itself) that
is because most of Kapringen is deeply personal and told from just two
perspectives; that of the ship’s cook, Mikkel (played brilliantly by Pilou Asbæk)
and businessman, Peter (courtesy of a strong Søren Malling performance). In this
sense, the film has its strengths and its pitfalls. We get to care for most of
the characters (although the constant hard-balling Gary Skjoldmose Porter’s
Connor Julian comes off as a little too obnoxious) and see how this lengthy
period of isolation and danger effects them, even briefly dipping into
Stockholm Syndrome. The film knows how to serve tension well and has a great
sound design to that effect, but there are several promising threads that are
never fully explored so whilst a strong film it never lives up fully its
expectations.
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