Written by George Kay, directed by Jim Field Smith, and starring international treasure Idris Elba, Hijack is the latest addition to Apple TV's stacked roster of under-the-radar series' made with real passion and craft.
One of the strongest attributes of Hijack is its existence as a limited streaming event. By keeping things tight and lean, writer George Kay maximizes the narrative hook of the project in surprisingly impactful ways. The story of Hijack is simple and one that fans have almost certainly seen before. A plane is hijacked midair by terrorists. What sets Hijack apart is that the streaming series chronicles the events in real time.
Audiences going into Hijack thinking it might be similar to 24 or Die Hard 2 will be reassured by the presence of the physically imposing Idris Elba and the well-crafted tension and suspense of Jim Field Smith's direction. The opening minutes of this first episode feel like a very deliberate attempt to reinforce these expectations. From Elba's Sam Nelson's strained relationship with his wife to the methodical nature with which Kay's script and Smith's camera chronicle the innermost minutia of the lives of the plane's passengers before takeoff, Hijack builds a palpable sense of dread and anticipation.
Every detail, character interaction, and choice is chronicled with immense attention to detail. Jim Field Smith and Director of Photography Ed Moore maintain suspense by maximalizing clarity. A great early example of this is the use of sustained oners to establish the layout of the plane. In a matter of seconds, Smith, Moore, and their team reveal precisely where every character is in relation to one another and how the plane is organized in a memorable fashion. It's really efficient visual storytelling that immediately gets the audience familiar with Andrew Purcell's exquisite production design.
Smith also does a terrific job letting the visuals speak for themselves. Between Smith's direction and David Webb's splendidly articulate editing, entire story beats are communicated entirely through subtext. When a man looks back worriedly at the baggage check worker as his bag passes through, Smith and Webb give the moment weight in a memorable, intelligent way so that later, when the contents of the bag are revealed, the audience understands how and why it got here, without a single word of dialogue.
Kay's writing is quite strong. Tasked with introducing a couple dozen different threads for these characters, this first episode coherently and effectively tightens those strings across the episode's runtime to meticulous and perilous results. Kay seems to savor taking a would-be-cliche moment (such as the pilot having to choose how to respond to the terrorists) and mining the devils in the details. By finding such reality, pathos, and conflict within these moments, Kay, Smith, and their wonderfully authentic performers breathe new life into them.
Elba is as amazing as ever. "Final Call" asks a lot of him, as the stoic surface-level performance he begins with gives way to something much more nuanced and subversive. He's great, and it's easy to see why a role like this might have attracted him as a performer. Overall, Hijack is off to an incredibly promising start. Even as it sets the table for what is sure to come, George Kay and Jim Field Smith's first episode is crackling with tension.
Hijack Premieres on Apple TV+ on June 28.