Right before the hijacking in Fishing Without Nets (Vice Films)

Fishing Without Nets is a beautifully shot, intelligent, and engaging, if somewhat clichéd and obvious, story about a group of Somali pirates who capture a cargo ship. It’s kind of a reverse mirror of Captain Phillips. Or Captain Phillips is a reverse mirror of Fishing Without Nets. It all depends on one’s perspective. Either way, one thing that this film has over Captain Phillips is a lack of bloat. It clocks in at less than two hours, and though it could stand some trimming, it still moves fairly quickly with a solid trajectory.

Fishing Without Nets focuses on Khadir, a fisherman. The oceans are no longer giving up its spoils and the country has been ravaged with war, which leads him to worry about how to provide for his family. His best friend, China Boy (Abdiwali Farrah), convinces him to join a group of nearby pirates. He hesitates, feeling he would be tarnishing the memory of his moral, upstanding father. Eventually, Khadir relents, and the film chronicles his struggle as he finds himself increasingly at odds with his colleagues’ mission.

Abdikani Muktar, as Khadir, is the heart of the film. He possesses a gentle, open face and exudes a gentle charisma. What’s wonderful about his performance is that he speaks only when necessary. He’s mostly an observer, yet he is the beating heart of the film. The dove thrown in with the lions.

A lot of the bases of a hostage thriller, which Fishing Without Nets is, are covered: from the protagonist bonding with the hostage to the battle between the younger hotheads and their more measured, more experienced elders, who consider piracy a business. It’s to the film’s credit that the clichés are dealt with so deftly. It also helps that director Cutter Hodierne elicits such impressive performances from a mostly non-professional cast.

The ending is powerful and visceral, both visually and thematically. It potently underscores the films thesis: even the most moral, if the circumstances are dire enough, can fall under the spell of greed and money.

If there is one not-so-minor quibble, it’s the subplot involving Khadir’s wife and child, who he entrusts to the hands of smugglers. It takes up a good part of the first quarter and reappears in flashbacks throughout. It works well as backstory and to clarify Khadir’s motivations, but it deflates the momentum of the main plot and could have easily been dealt with in the dialogue. Aside from that, Fishing Without Nets is a solid thriller. Recommended viewing.