Becoming The Muse

Hijack is a seven part thriller miniseries that premiered on Apple TV+ on 28 June 2023.

The series stars Idris Elba as Sam Nelson, a corporate business negotiator on a 7 hour flight from Dubai to London that gets hijacked…

The Good

Hello Idris Elba… The man has an on-screen charisma that is like a spot of tranquil calmness in a sky full of turbulence…

Sam Nelson’s character is a fine balancing act of duality: looking out for number one but also looking out for others, a reluctant hero who is just trying to get home, reminiscent of a John McClane trying to make it home for Christmas…

Its an intense edge of your seat watch that has each episode ending on cliff-hanger note that will have you like… let me watch just one more episode to see where this leads; from the claustrophobic aisles of Kingdom Airlines flight KA29 to the frantic rush outside the plane as they figure out how to avert the crisis, and all the plot twists and red herrings that you wont see coming.

You can tell from the jump that while the hijackers are executing a well-oiled plan, they are a ragtag bunch of hijackers who seem to have somehow been pooled in the sweepstakes of how to hijack a plane and so you never know what to they will do or not do next.

Each episode gives an on the hour account of the 7 hour flight from Dubai to London that gives a nod to the real-time action of Jack Bauer thriller 24.

The Bad

It starts off strong then asks you to suspend your disbelief as it gets more and more improbable and outlandish; if you have amateur interest in aviation it has some glaring potholes ✈

The series is at its best when Sam Nelson and the hijackers are going head-to-head and his no-nonsense negotiator skills which can convince a snobbish kid to turn down the volume of his video games and a hijacker not to shoot him in the head… but away from confines of the aircraft the series loses its pacing, the events outside the plane feel misplaced and not thought through.

The Ugly

There mini-series plays to the stereotypical trope on terrorism, although they tried to plot twist their way out of it, subverting expectations and of course having a couple of characters point out the dangers of stereotyping..

The ending feels a bit rushed as if the script writers just thought: ok lets end this now, there’s some unresolved threads in the plot.

Final Thoughts

If you are willing to suspend your disbelief and just watch… its an immersively edge of you seat thrilling ride with lots of turbulence…