One of those films that has a lot of impressive things and other things that could have been done better. One of the things that Cargo has in its favour is that it looks great, the scenery is beautiful, the ship is like a character of its own, the lighting has a haunting effect and the photography and editing have a tautness and eeriness about them. The music also has an eerie quality while not making things too obvious, the first half of the story at least is very engaging and suspenseful as well as tightly paced, the dialogue is smart and intense at this point too and Peter Mullen and Daniel Bruhl are very well-cast, very brooding. In fact the cast is solid with nobody really disgracing themselves. The second half is not quite so good, it has its intense, suspenseful moments and the film is still well made and acted sure. But it also does come rather confused and even for a thriller things felt under-explained, granted thrillers can leave things open for interpretations and leave a lot of questions but for some reason Cargo didn't feel very complete at the end of the day. The dialogue becomes stilted by this point, the pacing loses its tightness and becomes plodding and Cargo does end on a banal note. The characters are relatively interesting in the first half and mostly for the second half but the viewer's frustration at Chris' actions increase more and more until reaching boiling point towards the end. Overall, a well-made film with some impressive things but a lot of the second half leaves one short-changed. Not plain-sailing but not a ship-wreck. 5/10 Bethany Cox

The movie starts off establishing Chris as an unsympathetic, dubious character. He steals a bracelet after a man refuses to sell it to him; not only that, Chris treats the vendor with obvious contempt, without any reason. A little later, he has an altercation with the local police, in which he frees himself by head-butting one. Now, regular German students (or young people) visiting any country for tourist reason do NOT even know where to begin with executing a head-butt, let alone perform one on a cop. Hence, we have to assume that Chris is an unsavory character at best.And yet, as events unfold on the ship, Chris turns out to be a person of principle, ready to risk his own neck to save a couple of stowaways that he barely even knows. So what triggered this sudden change in him? Or are we merely looking at another badly written movie character? I tend toward the latter.Whether Chris is badly written or badly understood hence played by the German actor Bruhl, there is definitely something "off" about his behaviour throughout the movie. There is no indication early on that Chris is a moron, and yet he behaves like one on several occasions once he has been discovered on the ship: 1) he practically laughs at the blond guy whom he caught masturbating, 2) he is rude without a reason toward Mullen while shaving him, 3) he is told to remain locked in his room, yet he goes to the deck to spy on the crew, 4) he goes through Mullen's drawers, taking risks that are far too unnecessary, especially for someone in his shoes. His behaviour on the ship is that of a misbehaving, overly curious child, i.e. not of an illegal passenger who is supposed to keep a low profile in a place that is very obviously run by criminals.The other somewhat problematic character is the one played by Mullen. Here is a man who kills his best friend on the ship by repeatedly smashing his head in, who has African stowaways thrown overboard to their deaths without so much as flinching, and who had already killed even his own son by breaking his neck! And yet the captain is plagued by remorse that seems to be far too strong for a person of that kind of extremely low moral fiber.Mullen's treatment of Chris is bafflingly permissive and soft, which we much later find out was the result of Chris resembling his dead son. That, of course, explains why Mullen looked at him so intensely in the bar when they were all still on land. Chris is not only an illegal passenger, but his behaviour is provocative, to say the least. In the end, as Chris drowns, Mullen is overcome with guilt, as if witnessing a renewed murder of his dead son. He breaks down completely, starts sobbing and even orders the entire crew to leave the ship! Somehow none of this feels very realistic. Someone who exhibits psychopathic violent tendencies is almost always devoid of empathy, let alone guilt or love for anyone, even for a family member. Mullen plays a person that cannot exist in the real world."Cargo" is an interesting, moody film that promises a lot but ultimately disappoints with its mostly banal conclusion. There are hints of ghosts, of supernatural forces plaguing the ship (the strange sounds, coupled with the birds' behaviour), but in the end it's all just a puff of smoke. Little is explained. We never find out who made those noises, nor do we understand why the crew are disappearing. Are they being killed by ghosts or - as one person here wrote - killed themselves due to guilt by jumping overboard. That's an interesting theory, but not very plausible. Were they killed by the illegal passengers? Not too likely; they are not presented as that dangerous.Chris's death is a little weird, too. He jumps into the ocean to rescue Subira, but she refuses to connect hands! I tell ya, when you're drowning, your very strong instinctive reaction is to grab the hand of WHOMEVER is offering it to you, and may it even be Hitler's or Stalin's. A very unconvincing scene. As a result, Chris drowns - while Subira saves herself! "Cargo" had potential, but somewhere along the line there must have been too much last-minute tempering with the script. I have no other explanation...So what is the movie about? In the words of the famous 20th-century poet The Notorious B.I.G.: "My cargo, escargot...". Sorry, no idea what this means, but neither had the murdered fatso.

Sometimes, people take a detour on their lives and end up going somewhere they would never want to be. That's what happened to a young boy named Chris who traveled on work to an African country and decided to stay (or so he says) to know more about it. Romantic fantasies subside when the truth about corruption and violence in African nations puts Chris in a dire situation... ... so he decides to stowaway on a boat for Marseille, a boat with a special treatment reserved for stowaways. Having slept harmless in the cargo hold for one night, before being found, everybody else on the ship thinks he knows what lies hidden in the hold, that makes strange noises and frightens the crew-members, making them disappear one by one. Is it a sea monster? A ghost seeking revenge?... The problem is: the crew knows more about it than Chris, and a sense of mistrust is visible from day one. Who's friend, who's foe? And who's more afraid of whom? Told to stay in his room, close his eyes, sleep, and ignore the strange noises at night, he decides to find out what secret hides behind a name written in the WC walls: "Rebecca". And he does. And he now knows he SHOULD NOT be alive, and survivor's guilt sets in... "Cargo" is a metaphor about live. About the way we have to live with our egocentric decisions, about the ghosts we carry and the mistakes we made in the past, and the way we deal with strangers and try to find a meaning to our lives in the experience with significant others. And, as "The Baptist" (the cook) says in the last minutes of the movie to Capt. Brookes, "It's not too late to be human again". So the Captain kills him. A very claustrophobic ambiance carries very far the sense of strangeness between the crew-members and the stowaway, and the story is told more with silence and secrets than with acts or dialog (except for the story about "Rebecca" and all the killings after that). You can almost feel the urge to demand that the crew accepts and treats fairly the poor Chris, but they are on opposite extremes of the Humankind. In the end, Chris's sacrifice redeems the entire crew that abandons the ship "Gull" for a new life on the ground, but his body will lie there, in the cargo hold, in the arms of Capt. Brookes, determined to go down with the ship to atone for his sins. Though simple, it is a nice movie to see in late night sessions. P.S.: there are no ghosts or sea monsters on this ship, but the ones we carry inside our own hearts.

Daniel Brühl stars as Chris, a plucky German traveler in Africa who stands up to pretty much everyone. In trouble with the local law and having lost his passport, he stows away on a cargo ship headed for Spain. Peter Mullan is brilliantly cast as the captain, Brookes, whose throaty drawl and demeanor are perfectly cast as a captain.Once Chris is exposed as a stowaway on the ship, he becomes a part of the crew, but slowly starts to realize that the law and morality have no meaning on the high seas.The film is moody, well shot, and the acting is exceptional. While many scenes are high intensity and very suspenseful, there is no excessive gore or any "boo" horror therein. The mood and the unanswered (and answered) questions leave the viewer questioning reality and what severe isolation must do to a crew of men such as these.Daniel Bruhl is perfectly cast as Chris; his charisma turns on and off at will, and he transforms his character from complacent to annoyed in a second.Peter Mullan accompanies Bruhl with his stolid, cryptic, and persistent mood, yet comes across as a character you have to like because he demands to be in charge.For a moody, tense thriller with an intelligent back story, see this movie.