Idris Elba returns as Sam Nelson in Hijack 2. Picture Supplied Just over a year and some months ago, give or take, Idris Elba blasted onto our screens as Sam Nelson. He was a business negotiator who landed up on a hijacked flight.
The Apple TV showHijackwas one of the most binge-worthy series last year. Simply brilliant. That is, until now.
Because Sam Nelson is back in the sequel series,Hijack, and it’s easily the most watchable, or let’s say one of the most watchable programmes streaming right now. Presently,Hijackis being drip-released with a fresh episode every week. The wait is painful, but the reward is well worth it.
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This time, Sam is on a commuter train on the Berlin underground, the U-Bahn. He’s on his way to a meeting at the British embassy. There are suspicious characters everywhere and, as you’d kind of expect, based on the previous instalment, someone’s going to hijack the train.
It seems so from the get-go: Sam spots suspects, and the director shows us more of them. The train is full of characters we get to know really quickly. There’s a bunch of annoying English students, a claustrophobic passenger, a cop, a mom with a crying baby and then some.
But alas, the twist comes quickly at the end of the first episode. Sam hijacks the train. This, after a commotion and a short confrontation with a passenger and his red rucksack.
Then, the train driver, Otto, behaves suspiciously. And then, well, just as we think Sam’s heroics are about to kick off, when someone else pulls a gun, it changes. Surprisingly.
And then, you’re hooked. Say no more. Meanwhile, as Sam hijacks the train, the blip on the train monitoring command centre radar disappears.
The controller, Clara, flags it, and reinforcements are called in. Then the cops. After that, the German special forces (like a SWAT Team) called GSG9.
Then British Intelligence. Over at the embassy, Sam’s contact is still waiting for him, and so is the German government minister they were supposed to engage with. But Sam outwits them.
Even when the authorities try to block the track with a stationary train. It’s a tense thriller from the first moment the opening credits fade. But… because there is always a but.
And that but is, that Hijack 2 is not as straightforward an adrenaline ride à laDie Hardwithout a white vest and grease as the first series was. It’s more complex; the plot and subplots demand more attention from viewers than just a simple A-to-B storyline. Other critics have noted how uncomfortable Elba looks as Sam in this show, and how it may be the direction that was a mis-fit.
Yet, the opposite is more likely true. Sam Nelson is acting against his own grain. He’s a straight-up-and-down kind of man who, in series one, did the right thing from, well, A to B to Zee.
In Hijack 2, Elba plays a man whose character is out of character. So, of course, looking uncomfortable lies at the very essence of what Sam is supposed to be doing, feeling and behaving. Go-figure that anyone could miss that?
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