Hijack Review: Idris Elba Takes Charge in a First-Class Thrill Ride From Apple TV+

Flying on an airplane has to rank right up there with the least enjoyable experiences we face these days — so imagine my surprise when spending a few hours on a plane with Apple TV+’s Hijack actually turned out to be downright pleasurable. The new hostage drama starring Idris Elba (premiering Wednesday, June 28; I’ve seen three of the seven episodes) is a good old-fashioned pulse-pounder that takes full advantage of its claustrophobic setting with perfectly calibrated tension and high-intensity action scenes.

Elba plays Sam Nelson, a passenger on a flight from Dubai to London that’s set to take about seven hours, and the series matches that timeline, taking place over seven hour-long episodes. (The real-time format and airplane setting makes Hijack feel like a mash-up of 24 and Passenger 57. Should we just call it Passenger 24?) Sam is on his way home to see a wife who doesn’t want him back, but his plans change when a band of hijackers commandeer the plane and take everyone onboard hostage. It’s only then that we learn that Sam is a highly seasoned corporate negotiator who makes his living brokering difficult deals… and he’s about to put those skills to use.

Co-creators George Kay (Lupin) and Jim Field Smith (Criminal) craft their story with admirable precision, letting the tension build slowly and deliberately until it becomes agonizingly intense, with stark life-or-death stakes for everyone onboard. The real-time conceit isn’t strictly enforced, but Hijack does move at a brisk pace, and it manages to sustain its suspense quite well through the first three hours, despite the physical limits of its setting. In fact, the enclosed setting actually helps to concentrate the drama and make it more potent. (Compare that to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new Netflix show FUBAR, which travels the globe blowing stuff up and still doesn’t generate one-tenth of the tension that this show does.)

We’ve seen stories like this before, of course, but the quality of the execution here sets it apart. The hijackers’ motivations are murky at first (and that gives us a mystery to unravel as the episodes go on), but the danger they present is very real. Most of Hijack‘s characters are smart, too, which is a refreshing change; no one makes dumb decisions simply as a cheap way to propel the plot forward. Plus, the premiere ends with an intriguing twist that forces us to question who exactly is the bad guy.

Elba — who we already love from his days on The Wire and Luther — is one of our greatest stars today, and he makes a solid lead here, bringing quiet charisma and a coolheaded gravitas to the role of Sam. (If we never get to see him play James Bond, this might be the next best thing.) The supporting cast is very capable as well, including The Good Wife alum Archie Panjabi as a counterterrorism expert on the ground, Torchwood‘s Eve Myles as a skeptical air traffic controller and Coupling veteran Ben Miles as the plane’s harried pilot. But the real star here is the tension that gradually builds from episode to episode, finding genuine human drama in a confined space. Sometimes when you’re making great TV, less space is more.

THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE: Apple TV+’s Hijack finds new life in the standard airplane hostage drama with a heavy dose of nail-biting tension.