When Danish cargo ship MV Rozen is taken by Somalian pirates, a battle of compromise begins. Our first point of connection in the film is Mikkel (Pilou Asbæk) who becomes somewhat of a protagonist even though he never quite feels like the focal point. Mikkel is the vessel’s cook and is just ending a long run at sea to return home to his wife and kids. He’s an everyman who serves as a suitable blank slate to draw a sweaty transformation upon. In the midst of the stuffy, traumatic quagmire to come, Mikkel is doomed to change.

 

Before the takedown of Mikkel and crew, we switch to a few company heads navigating a trade agreement when they learn the news that their vessel, crew and cargo have been taken hostage. Instead of witnessing what is sure to have been a moment of panic, excitement, and cinema onboard the ship, we, like the company men, learn the news as it’s phoned in. Breaking expectations like this (we as an audience assume that we will see the take-down, not just hear about it later) sets the mood for what is to come.

 

 

Peter (Søren Malling), the man running the company, turns to a professional hijacking adviser who’s first bit of advice is to step away from the negotiations to come, as he wouldn’t want his existing relationship with the hostages to make matters personal and invite a misstep. Instead, this process needs to be calculated, cool, and entirely composed. Against his advice, Peter insists that he can be impersonal. Regrettably, Lindholm seems to have taken the same approach.

 

While we’re given glimpses of the diminishing human spirit within these passengers, our rather brief encounters with them are limited to long-drawn moments of silence. As they stagnate in captivity, we feel the same claustrophobia closing in. Rather than diving into the lost solace of these characters teetering on the breaking point, we’re stuck playing a numbers game.

 

As days turn to weeks turn then to months, the crew languishes in the throes of stand-still negotiation. Although Peter back home is taking every necessary precaution to get his crew back home safely, the process is so drawn out that it makes you wonder what he actually thinks he’ll actually be getting back at all. At what point does life lose its meaning in captivity?

 

Although the ransom of these captives is staggeringly high (with an asking price that starts north of 15 million dollars), it does raise interesting questions on the inherent value of life. With each day that goes by, these hijacked lives diminish in value, perhaps not to their employer, but to themselves. 

 

The narrative makes me think of Warren Fellows‘ The Damage Done, an autobiographical tale in which the author is jailed in Thailand for 12 years after he’s nabbed drug smuggling. Without intending to spoil anything, the thesis of that piece is that something is lost in captivity. Some important semblance of what is means to be human can literally be stolen from you as you fester in your own filth.  While Lindholm doesn’t dive full on into the question, he doesn’t dodge it either and builds a cynical sense of dread as we, the audience, await the fate of the crew.