Bullet Points: Hijack (1998)

Our ongoing quest to review every “Die Hard Clone” ever produced, has led me to 1998’s Hijack.

Hijack is is not only a “Die Hard Clone” but is also in the “Die Hard on a Train” subset, joining the likes of Under Siege 2: Dark Territory starring Steven Seagal, Derailed starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Death Train starring Bryan Genesse…

• ATF: We get right into the action with an ATF raid of a militia compound and one agent in particular is really amped up. That amped up agent is Eddie Lyman (Jeff Fahey, Parker Kane), who is determined to take out the leader of the militia, David Anderson. Lyman doesn’t take out Anderson (who managed to narrowly escape), but Lyman does take himself out of the game. Lyman’s actions force his superior, John Gathers (Robert Miano, Out for Blood) to suspend Lyman… which forces Lyman to go into sad sack mode, spending his days drinking beer and working on jigsaw puzzles. Hoping to snap Lyman out of his funk, his fiancée Valerie Miller (Beth Toussaint, Project Shadowchaser II), invites him on to a train trip she is taking as part of Senator Douglas Wilson’s entourage. Lyman turns down her invite.

• FAM: After losing his wife and son to gang banger gun violence, Senator Douglas Wilson (Ernie Hudson, The Substitute) is all about increased gun control and has written an “anti-gun” bill that has some people upset, people like David Anderson, the leader of the Firebird Action Movement (or FAM for those in the know). Senator Wilson and his train trip become a target for Anderson and his militia. Anderson’s right hand man, Carl (Patrick Kilpatrick, Showdown), gets on board the train posing as the private security hired to protect the Senator (who has refused Secret Service protection), two more Firebirds get on board as members of the press and a now clean shaven Anderson (Brent Huff, The Bad Pack), gets on board as the conductor… I should also point out that Anderson and his militia have also brought a nuclear bomb on board!

• SOL: When the militia men reveal their true selves after taking control of the train, it is bad news for everyone else on the train… Senator Wilson, Valerie, the Senator’s Chief of Staff, a TV reporter, her camera man and her daughter (who is studying journalism) and a newspaper reporter all find themselves shit outta luck. BUT, Anderson and his crew weren’t accounting for Val’s fiancé, Eddie Lyman, changing his mind at the last minute and using the press pass Val gave him to get on the train too… which makes Lyman the proverbial fly in the ointment. I was shocked that the first baddie that Lyman takes out was none other than Carl… it was a good move, because not only did he increase his odds, Lyman also got himself a gun.

• DOA: Fortunately for Lyman, he also got a bulletproof vest from Carl, which comes in handy when he is gunned down in front of the hostages. Lyman plays a good old fashioned game of possum for a bit, before he seizes his opportunity. This leads to Lyman being able to get the Senator and the hostages who were still standing off the train… but it’s only a temporary victory. Valerie is still on the train with the madman that is David Anderson AND the nuclear bomb on board has been activated. So we get a good old fashioned race against time as Lyman gets on a helicopter and goes after the train (and the woman he loves) before the train reaches its disastrous destination!

No offense to Jeff Fahey, but I believe that Hijack would have been better served going the Air Force One route and making Ernie Hudson’s Senator Wilson the main protagonist. Wilson and Anderson represented the opposite ends of the gun control spectrum. Both men having deeply personal reasons why they feel the way they feel about guns and the 2nd Amendment so it creates a natural rivalry between the two and one that Anderson is willing to take to the extreme. Instead it felt like Fahey’s Eddie Lyman was the square peg being forced into the round hole in Hijack.

Where “Die Hard Clones” are concerned, I would say Hijack lands in the middle. I have seen much better, but I have also seen worse.

For better or worse, I will now be wrapping up this review with some Bonus Bullet Points…

• AKA: 1998’s Hijack is also known as The Last Siege and in Germany it was released as Speed Train.
• Familiar Faces: Frank McRae of Red Dawn and Licence to Kill fame played one of the legit reporters on the train… Larry Manetti of Magnum P.I. and Top of the World fame, played the Senator’s Chief of Staff, Thomas Grady. Grady is kind of shady, so it is no surprise when he becomes the Hart Bochner of the movie.
• All in the Family: Ernie Hudson Jr. played Frank Jennings, a fellow ATF agent of Lyman.
• The Name Game: Not to be confused with 2008’s Hijack starring Shiney Ahuja or 1973’s Hijack! starring David Janssen.