On May 17th (18.30 screening) we are delighted to welcome John Toner (President of Irish Chamber of Shipping), Anthony Gurnee (Ardmore Shipping), Gary Porter, one of the film’s cast and a security expert; and Chirag Bahri, an Indian seafarer who was held hostage for 9 months in Somalia. They will be interviewed by Philip Molloy. N.B. The DVD promotion associated with the 17th May 18.30 screening applies only to tickets booked in person at the IFI Box Office. Telephone and online bookings are still operational.

A nightmare scenario unfolds for a Danish cargo ship in the Indian Ocean when armed Somali pirates take over the vessel. Back in Copenhagen, Søren Malling’s no-nonsense CEO is determined to stonewall the hijackers, understandable from his perspective but leaves Pilou Asbæk’s sympathetic cook and the other western crew members nervously sweating it out on-board.

Writer-director Tobias Lindholm, who previously scripted the excellent wrong-man drama The Hunt, calibrates every move in the anxious negotiations with assured precision, bringing documentary-style veracity to this study of the price of principles and the source of human courage. We share the sweaty claustrophobia of the captives just as much as the awful responsibility carried by the boss who’s possibly in over his head. Utterly gripping, and if Gary Skjoldmose Porter is especially convincing as the jargon-spouting corporate security consultant, that’s actually his job in real life! (Notes by Trevor Johnson.) 

This film will feature as part of our FREE film club debate, The Critical Take, on May 29th (18.30).