Hijack review: Apple’s new show offers a bumpy ride, but Idris Elba cancels the turbulence with his strong performance

Not too long into the journey, five people armed with handguns jump up from their seats and take control of the plane. They gain access to the cockpit and subdue the captain, and walk around the cabin yelling loudly at the passengers to stay in their seats and not make any sudden moves. While the show makes an attempt at misdirection by initially suggesting that the hijackers look exactly how you’d expect them to — this sort of satire, unfortunately, is usually indistinguishable from the racial prejudice that it is calling out — it turns out that they’re all actually British, and not motivated by religion at all. The leader of the pack is a man named Stewart, played by Neil Maskell, an actor known for his thick London accent, and for playing tightly wound characters on screen.

Elba, on the other hand, plays the rather plainly named Sam Nelson — this is a strong, reliable name, but also one that makes you wonder if it’s fake. Turns out, it isn’t. By virtue of being our protagonist, Sam is among the first to recognise that something is wrong aboard the flight, but he isn’t able to stop the takeover. In the first of the show’s several twists — every episode ends on a cliffhanger, by the way — Sam has the chance to subdue the hijackers, but choses instead to surrender and win their trust.

The show plays on Elba’s reputation as a tough guy, but it has to ensure that Sam doesn’t physically overpower the hijackers, because that would bring the show to a premature end. And so, the writing contrives ways — many of which are implausible — to recharacterise Elba (and by extension, Sam) as someone who is more likely to use smarts over strength in a situation like this. But only when the script needs this to happen. Sam is incredibly intelligent in certain scenes, like the one in which he finds a way to communicate with the ground by orchestrating minor deviations in the flight path. But he can also be incredibly dumb, like that scene in which he draws a flag with crayons and asks the people next to him what country it belongs to.

By now, the show had already established that Sam has skills suited for a tense situation like this. It’s implied, very strongly, that he is some kind of a negotiator, and the show encourages you to draw your own conclusions about his mysterious profession. So, for him to suddenly not know basic flags is a bit odd. He’s also reckless in some moments, and overly cautious in others. All these dichotomies and contradictions aren’t a reflection of how complex a character Sam is, but it comes across like narrative convenience. And this can be frustrating to watch, because you’re clearly meant to latch on to Sam on this journey.

The real-time gimmick, designed to ratchet up the tension, is rendered meaningless by Kay and Field Smith’s decision to not restrict the story to the flight. Hijack isn’t like the underrated Liam Neeson thriller Non-Stop, or Wes Craven’s Red Eye — both films that offer refreshing riffs on Hitchcockian tropes. It isn’t even like Hitchcock’s own The Lady Vanishes, which had the good sense to keep the action confined to the train. By cutting frequently to the ATC in charge, and the various law enforcement agencies that quickly become involved in tracking down who’s responsible, Hijack allows the cabin pressure to escape. Despite the constant presence of a literal countdown clock in the situation room set up by the British defence ministry, the experience is never as nail-biting as it could’ve been.

There are moments, for instance, where the pace slackens considerably. And you can sense that a regular show, not bound by this real-time conceit, would simply do away with these scenes. There are probably five twists too many for Hijack to be whittled down into a movie, but thanks mainly to Elba’s commanding presence in virtually every moment, it’s elevated to a more respectable experience than it actually is.

Hijack
Creator – George Kay
Cast – Idris Elba, Neil Maskell, Max Beesley, Archie Panjabi, Eve Myles
Rating – 3/5