Hijack on Apple TV+: Is there an Idris Elba on the plane? (critical)

Chiseled suspense and good ideas punctuate this hostage-taking in real time, in an Airbus flying to London. The only problem: Idris Elba is struggling to find his seat.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard this flight to Apple TV+. Please keep your seat belt fastened, because turbulence is expected on the course of hi-jack… Big turbulence even!

The excellent English screenwriter George Kayto whom we owe Lupine on Netflix, has concocted a delightful little aerial thriller, with a pitch of formidably effective simplicity: a plane flying to London is hijacked. A group of terrorists, visibly British, managed to introduce guns on board. He took the 200 innocent passengers hostage.

On paper, nothing that Liam Neeson or Harrison Ford can thwart… Except that hi-jack was not intended as a “Die Hard movie”. The idea is not how a hero is going to save them all by killing the bad guys one by one, with Stakhanovite composure. Here, we discuss, we negotiate, we negotiate. For the sake of realism pegged to the body. Because shooting at all costs is obviously an excessive risk-taking and that to survive this crisis, it is better to help the hijacked plane to arrive safely…

Kay and her partner Jim Field Smith had already reinvented the police investigation via the same naturalistic perspective, with their series Criminal (on Netflix) taking place in a vacuum in interrogation rooms. They play the same score to revisit the terrorist “action”. Here, the suspense is largely based on intense exchanges, drops of sweat dripping from the forehead, the pressure mounting both among the terrorists and among the hostages, to prevent the situation from degenerating at all costs. Clever, the authors thought of the hostage-taking in real time. The good idea and more, which increases the slider of stress as the 7 hour flight approaches the landing strip. Only problem, in this cabin all in half measure, Idris Elba struggling to find its place. Frankly underemployed, he whispers, calms the game, loses his charisma and ends up missing his flight. Obsessed with the desire to keep its hero very discreet, the series ultimately never manages to make him exist.

Hijack, season 1 in 7 episodes, to see on Apple TV+ from Wednesday, June 28. The series is also visible for Canal + subscribers.