It’s Idris Elba vs terrorists on a plane—what more do you want? The seven part miniseries Hijack is now available in the UK, screening on Apple TV+.
Okay, if you do want more, here’s the drill. Big Driis is Sam Nelson finds himself on a seven-hour flight from Dubai to London, en route to patching things up with his estranged wife Marsha (Christine Adams), when the plane is seized by a gang led by Neil Maskell’s clearly unhinged Stuart Atterton.
Now, while the good Mr Elba is more or less an ordinary guy caught up in extraordinary circumstances, here he also happens to be a top flight business negotiator. So while various folks on the ground, including Eve Myles’ air traffic controller and Archie Panjabi’s counter-terrorism cop, work to resolve issues from their end, our hero enters into a fraught battle of wits with the villain, aiming to save lives and get home with the bracelet he’s bought for his miffed missus.
Hijacking dramas are nothing new—we’re quite fond of Executive Decision, a film with the good sense to fling Steven Seagal off the aircraft about a third of the way in—but that’s because it’s a scenario packed with dramatic potential. You’ve got an inherently dangerous situation, desperate criminals, high stakes, and plenty of room for a mixed bag of character actors to strut their stuff as various crew members and passengers.
Here, the concept is essentially “what if that cokehead yuppie in Die Hard was actually a capable human being and also Idris Elba?”, which strikes us as an excellent conceit for seven or so hours of high-tension drama. It all plays out in more-or-less real time, too, so if “High Noon in the sky” sounds like your jam, cue this one up.
