It seems these days that, if you’re an actor of a certain age, there comes a point where you’re going to play a sad dad on a plane that faces an emergency of some kind. Most recently, that was Gerard Butler in “Plane.” And now it’s Idris Elba in the Apple TV+ series “Hijack.” So the warning stands: if you find yourself on a flight and catch sight of one of these sad dads, best get off immediately. However, whereas “Plane” becomes an ever more ridiculous action romp, “Hijack” leans into that claustrophobia that comes from being trapped in a metal tube hurtling through the sky. After a plane en route to London from Dubai gets hijacked shortly after takeoff by a mysterious group with guns, Elba’s Sam Nelsen must find away for him and fellow passengers to get out of the predicament alive. What follows is a lean, often mean thriller that’s at its best when it ratchets up the tension. As the hijacking unfolds in beat-by-beat real-time over its seven episodes, the show’s strong performances steer it through occasionally rough narrative winds. And while “Hijack” feels ultimately disposable, it nonetheless manages to be entertaining in the end.
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A bolder version of this seven-episode series would stay even truer to its premise, never leaving the plane to keep the audience stuck in unrelenting tensions. Alas, that’s not what viewers get here. Some of the premise’s twists escalate things to a breaking point, and may elicit unintended chuckles from their sheer ridiculousness, but “Hijack” manages to get to its destination without coming apart. But mileage will vary for audience members, based on how much willingness one has to go along with said twists. And there’s also the “sad dad” quotient to reckon with. “Hijack” establishes it trope early, tacking on Tom estrangement from his family in an incidental way. But it’s not as if this show would be a rich character study for Elba’s Tom anyway. What matters more in “Hijack” is the verve it puts into its well-worn sub-genre without feeling too derivative. This show is less about the story told than the way it tells it; in that sense, “Hijack” is propulsive enough when it matters.
In this regard, the most effective components of “Hijack” come in its opening episodes as everything fall into place plot-wise. Even when the show drags in the middle, losing tightly-wound tension in more pedestrian and plodding scenes on the ground as officers look at screens and piece together what they should do, Elba proves once more that he’s a strong performer to build a thriller around. Even when Sam sits on the plane, observing its hijackers, his presence it work. Even Sam merely telling off racist yahoos in the back row of the plane that want to launch a reckless counterattack against the hijackers indicate Elba’s abilities. Sam is analytical and patient, thanks to his career as a successful business negotiator. And while he’s aware that the situation he’s in is far more complicated than it initially appears, Elba plays the role deftly, even as Sam quickly finds himself in over his head. 
Sam initially tries out different strategies to discover potential weaknesses in the hijackers’ plan, from pretending to work with them to eventually using the in-flight games to communicate with other passengers on the plane. Elba makes the most of even the simplest of scenes, and never phones in his performance. And even when momentum grinds to a halt, like when Sam spends far too long stuck away from everything else playing out in the air, Elba showcases his talents. “Hijack” takes too long revealing who hijacked the plane and why, but Elba’s performance keeps viewers the audience’s temper from flaring. Without him, it’s hard to see this series working at all. And when the actor isn’t onscreen, like stuffy boardroom meetings where callous suits bicker over how they’ll respond to the crisis, the series feels especially hollow.
And therein lies the major problem of “Hijack”: when Elba isn’t onscreen, nothing feels all that consequential. Each scene without the actor at best box-checks plot points to keep things moving along and. At worst, they pad out episode runtimes with no purpose whatsoever. And each scene without Elba feels like the actors struggle to get through them. These expositional sequences sometimes bury the thrills of the series’ premise. If only “Hijack” took cues from “Emergency Declaration” that, while an abundantly flawed project, was able to strike a better balance in its plot between everything on the ground and in the air. Elba takes these weaknesses in stride, but there’s another a version of this series that sets him up for greater success. 
When Elba’s Sam gets matched with a fitting adversary, played by another strong screen presence in Neil Maskell’s sinister Stuart, “Hijack” truly does flight. The pair don’t always find themselves sharing scenes, but the ones they do crackle with energy the rest of the series sorely lacks. Maskell’s performance proves deceptively dynamic, with chilling silences made more unsettling when his character suddenly explodes in fits of rage. The British series “Utopia” (and not its lackluster American remake) showcases the same range Maskell uses here. While Stuart is often more in the background in “Hijack,” he gets the chance to go toe-to-toe with Elba to the viewer’s delight. Even as “Hijack” on the whole isn’t always on the level of these two actors, the moments where they have room to work together make this often turbulent series feel more like a rollicking thrill ride. [B-]
“Hijack” debuts on Apple TV+ on June 16.