EXIT: MADS MIKKELSEN ON THE RUN, MORE FILM AT NORDICANA

When I wrote about the Danish film A Hijacking I suggested that the theme of business ethics and its relation to social morality was part of many recent Scandinavian films, among them Exit. In A Hijacking the conflict was between a businessman's social responsibility to the crew of his vessel and his ingrained desire to 'win' the negotiation. As it happened, I had just seen Exit earlier the same day at the Nordicana festival, and though the two films weren't part of a double-feature, the connection was obvious.

Exit begins Mads Mikklesen explaining, in voice-over, how negotiating is all about knowing your opponent's weakness, and that every opponent has one. The movie opens with Mikklesen, as Thomas Skepphult, and his partner in a firm called Nova Investment forcing out the man whose family's firm it had been, because he has done something that crossed their ethical boundary while completing a deal with another firm. The ousted man, Morgan Nordenstrole, goes back to his office and blows his head off with a shotgun.

Seven years later, Nova is trying to exit that deal, and cash in their profits, but another investor, the super slick Gabriel Mork, holds them to ransom on theexit. At the same time, Thomas' mentor and partner, Wilhelm, announces he wants to retire, and shows Thomas a hidden compartment in his safe, in which is a tape which Thomas believed had been destroyed. That night, Wilhelm is murdered, and because his death would save Thomas millions on the price of buying him out, Thomas becomes the top suspect and is arrested. But while trying to contact his lawyer, someone else gets on the line, and Thomas realises he's been set up, and nothing is as it seems.

On the one hand, Exit is a complicated, sometimes repetitive, innocent man on the run film, in the tradition of Tell No One or Headhunters, and it wouldn't surprise me if it hadn't hadn't provided some inspiration for Jo Nesbo's tale. As with the Harlan Coben novel (and the French film) Thomas is lucky to have a professional to call upon for help, in his case a cousin who is some sort of security operative, and helped also by the insane incompetence of the Swedish police. Detective Malm, played with a wonderful sneer of suspicion by Ia Langhammer, has decided the case from the first, and after that point, no amount of killing, shooting, fire, or kidnap can distract the cops' attention. Which is great if you're an accused murderer on the run. Especially one played by Mikklesen, who is fast becoming the most sado-masochistic character in movies: public-school boy perverse torturing James Bond (and getting his come-uppins, so to speak) in Casino Royale, getting beaten to a pulp more here than in The Hunt, bloodier than Valhalla Rising.

It also never seems to occur to the police to see whether Thomas is still running his business, which he is trying to do using his assistant Fabian von Klerking as a go-between. Eventually Fabian (Alexander Skarsgard) has to go to Mork (whose name, at least in English, suggests murk and angel at the same time; John Rabaeus, playing him, is excellent, and looks a bit like a classier version of William Forsythe) and Mork, it turns out, did the nasty to Fabian's father. But he overcomes his distaste out of loyalty to Thomas, and this impresses Mork. It also suggests that there is something about the aristocracy, the old Sweden, as signaled by Fabian, that is not only worth admiring but has been lost. Although I was wondering if the burned out 'P' in the 'Prince' sign in the inevitable seedy bar Thomas is forced to visit was some sort of comment on the Swedish royal family.

As I said, the plot involves some repetition (here review imitates life), and a good deal of twisting. Thomas repeats the same sort of gambit a few times, and indeed there are two escapes via powerboat, which is stretching it for any movie not set in Hong Kong. Questions of loyalty and trust are paramount, from Wilhelm's wife Louise, to Thomas' own wife Anna (played with some relish by Kirsti Eline Torhaug). Samuel Froler is excellent as the psychopathic villain, and even better is his henchman Ahmed (Hassan Brijay) who might have walked out of one of the Pusher films

Which is one of the strongest points of Exit. At times it has that grainy darkness of 70s American crime films, and which the Pusher films share, but it is also very carefully one of the most noirish films to come from the sadly misnamed Nordic Noir pantheon. It is exceedingly dark and shadowy, and for most of the film the only light comes in scenes set in Thomas' home, where the sunlight streams in over water and through picture windows. But mostly it takes place in places where natural light never shines, or at night, or both, and that sets the mood. When the film reaches its visceral climax, it's full-scale Fall of the House Of Usher, which I found symbolic. Director Peter Lindmark has a nice visual command which helps give depth to what otherwise would be just a pacy thriller with a few too many longeurs. And when the ultimate betrayal is revealed in the final twist, it too is a shadowy picture in a reflection of a dark room. It doesn't get more noirish than that.

Exit is available on DVD from Arrow Films on 8 July

Note: This review will also appear at Crime Time (www.crimetime.co.uk)

TOBIAS LINDHOLM'S HIJACKING: FILM AT NORDICANA

Writer/director Tobias Lindhom signals his intentions right at the beginning of his powerful A Hijacking, shown as part of the Nordicana festival. It's the story of a Danish merchant ship taken by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. The film actually opens with Peter C Ludvigsen, the CEO of the shipping company called into a meeting with a Japanese firm they are looking to buy. They want to spend less than $15 million; the Japanese are holding firm at $21m. We see Ludvigsen begin his negotiations; then we see him afterwards, the deal done for $14.5m. And soon after, he is called out of a meeting to learn about the hijacking.

In this country, reviewers praised the lack of a 'Hollywood' hijacking, as if by not being Under Siege European films were automatically superior. You might be forgiven for expecting that, given the film's UK poster, but having assured themselves this wasn't Steven Seagle, they seemed to assume the movie was some sort of docu-drama, and paid little attention to its opening and the thrust that it portends, and continues. This is crucial, because A Hijacking (an odd mistranslation, since the Danish title, Kapringen, would be THE Hijacking--but Lindholm himself explained in Sight & Sound that they chose to translate with the indefinite article to distinguish themselves from 'the action genre' and to 'signal objectivity', which obviously cued the British critical response. It's good value from one indefinite article!) belongs firmly in the tradition of films like Inheritance, Exit, or even Headhunters; films in which the demands of big business challenge the concept of personal ethics within the traditional societal morality of Scandinavia. Its Danish poster makes that clear, and, in this sense, A Hijacking is really two films, one dealing with the prisoners' dilemma, and the other with the negotiation.

The prisoners' story (we see only the three white prisoners, the other four are kept separately, which we must assume is an interesting bit of Somalian racial profiling) is one of fear, uncertainty, and claustrophobia. Lindholm's first feature film, R, was a prison drama (which I have not yet seen, but now will!) which also starred Pilou Asbaek, who will be familiar to Borgen viewers, and who is absolutely excellent in his roller-coaster emotional ride as the ship's cook Mikkel—indeed, it is a small act of relief for him at film's end which turns out to have tragic results. Most telling is his relation with his captors—there is a scene where he and crewmate Jan catch a plaice, and it almost appears a form of Stockholm Syndrome, call it Copenhagen Syndrome, is in the offing.

This turns out to be false however. The hijackers live through the power of the gun, and Asbaek turns out to be manipulated even more cynically by Omar (Abdihakin Asger), their negotiator, as we see they are by the shipping company back home.

That is because this is a negotiation, and thus a personal battle for Peter and for Omar too. Peter's played with great inward control by Soren Malling, and his assistant Lars by Dar Salin. They too are veterans of Borgen, which should not be surprising because Lindholm was a writer on that show (he also co-scripted The Hunt, which I still see as an Oscar nominee in 2014, read my London Film Festival review here) and one of the key themes of Borgen is the area where ego, where personal motivation, leeches into the demands of the business of politics.

Peter, and his company, make a great show to the families of their crew of caring about the safety of the men. At first, we can ascribe the hard-line they take with the Somalis to the outside expert they've called in, named Connor Julian and played by Gary Skjoldmose Porter, who's a steroided and tattooed guy with an Australian accent and a Berkeley T shirt. The point is he isn't Danish.

But we soon see that Peter has gone into his own negotiation mode, and this becomes, in a sense a personal battle. Not just with Omar—conducted over ship to shore radio, which heightens the tension but keeps the focus on each man individually—but with himself, and perhaps his instincts. Julian is there to help keep him from getting emotional over his men, but Peter actually needs little help to forget that. His mantra is that negotiating involves 'knowing the opposition', but the reality is he knows little about them. What he does know is Omar is another negotiator, and the men are his only leverage.

As the days mount up, indicated by captions which seem to increase geometrically, the pressure grows, and the key scene comes from Peter's wife visits him in his office. He's been separated from her almost as fully as Mikkel has from his wife. She wakes him on his office couch and we see he is sleeping in a sleeveless T-shirt, the same uniform Mikkel wears. He is vulnerable, but he dresses in his suit in the same way warriors don armour, and by the time he is fully dressed he has gone into warrior mode, and he sends his wife away brutally.

The deal is finally done, not without tragedy, and Mikkel is reunited with his wife and daughter in a spare office room, a touching scene which plays out the difficulty of his return to his former world. Meanwhile, Peter, having handled the difficult duty of notifying a family of a death, finally leaves the offices. The film's last shot is of the garage doors closing down, like prison gates. The question is whether Peter has escaped his own prison of business and negotiation, or whether is he always going to be captive there.

A Hijacking is on general release 

NOTE: This review will also appear at Crime Time (www.crimetime.co.uk)