Sam Nelson, played by Idris Elba (Luther), boards the plane that is to take him from Dubai to London. His only mission is to retrieve his wife as soon as he lands. But when he witnesses a kidnapping from his first-class seat, he decides to put himself in a compromising situation: he tries to talk, help and negotiate with the criminals so that this hellish flight doesn’t end in tragedy. He is an expert in negotiations in the business field and wants to apply his good nose. He has seven hours so that the more than 200 passengers can be reunited with their families alive.
In On-Air Kidnapping, which premieres on Apple TV this Wednesday, writer George Kay and director Jim Field Smith reprise indoors after setting Criminal in police station interrogation rooms. The thriller moves beyond the Kingdom airline plane (Archie Panjabi and Eve Myles have key roles on the ground) but it has its secret and its tension in the management of time and space: seven episodes representing the seven hours of flight and a cabin that is unaware of the kidnappers’ motivations.
The British mentality of Midair Kidnapping is commendable: there isn’t that intrinsic need of made-in-Hollywood productions to dress each character for a very specific dramatic purpose or to turn some of them into emotional hooks. This is not a series where passengers develop unlikely romantic or sexual chemistry in a seven-hour kidnapping that leads to passionate kisses before the final onslaught. Do not create unquestionable colleagues that lead to visualizing these characters having a beer if they get out of the situation alive.
Kidnapping in the air, at least on a dramatic level, is direct. It doesn’t waste time on fast-paced subplots to fit into the usual story arcs or fill out footage. An example is found in the airplane pilot, who had an extramarital relationship with a flight attendant: it makes sense that it appears because the kidnappers play with it at a certain moment, but the fiction has no intention of turning the idyll into a subplot or to take that relationship to the moralistic terrain. Even the family of Sam Nelson, who at first threatens to make a focus by stealing minutes of footage (after all, he wants to go back to his wife and she has a boyfriend!), settles for a role of support.
This does not mean that Apple’s production is free from having an often convenient script. It is impossible to justify why criminals get their ears eaten at all times by the character of Idris Elba. They always listen to his advice, he moves calmly around the vehicle and, despite being a pain in the ass, he never has a problem communicating with the passengers he needs help from.
It’s bizarre that a team of criminals would allow a seven-foot-tall cabinet and negotiation expert to walk around the plane like Pedro around his house (or that, when movement is prohibited, he can slip away without being seen and, in the case of being caught, hardly have consequences). In the same way, the planning and lethality of some of the criminals does not quite fit with the events that occurred in midair. Could it be that Apple had asked for an especially timid thriller, considering the cowardice of the camera in the most violent scenes?
Hijacking in the air, therefore, is a British thriller that saves the viewer dramatic padding even though the action on the plane asks to turn off the critical neuron, the one that leads to asking “why?” every time you need to advance in the kidnapping. The only thing that is not clear to me is the broadcast mode: I can be a strong defender of the weekly model but, taking into account that the story is told in real time, this miniseries precisely requires viewing in marathon mode.
