Sundance review: 'Fishing Without Nets..

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"Fishing Without Nets"

U.S. Dramatic

*** (three stars)

First-time director Cutter Hodierne tackles a meaty subject in "Fishing Without Nets" — Somali pirates — and handles it with immediacy and power. Hodierne takes the vantage point of Abdi (Abdikani Muktar), a third-generation Somali fisherman whose nets and wallet are empty. He needs money to help his wife and chilld escape Somalia, so he reluctantly takes a friend's offer to join a crew of pirates who commandeer a European freighter and take its crew hostage. Hodierne and his cast create some chilling and tension-filled moments, like when some of the pirates debate how much more money white European hostages draw compared with Asian or black ones. The bickering among the Somali crew gets a bit repetitious in the middle section, but the finale is as intense as a movie gets.

— Sean P. Means

"Fishing Without Nets" (in Somalian, French and some English, with subtitles) screens again: Saturday at midnight at the Tower Theatre, Salt Lake City; Monday at 8:30 a.m. at Prospector Square Theatre, Park City; Thursday at 9:45 p.m. at the Eccles Theatre, Park City; and Friday, 11:30 a.m. at The MARC.

Sundance review: 'Fishing Without Nets'