Screeners From Hell: "Hijacked"

“Hijacked”
Year: 2012
Director: Brandon Nutt
Stars: Randy Couture, Dominic Purcell, Vinnie Jones
Studio: Anchor Bay Films
MPAA Rating: R               
Running Time: 90 Mins

Hijacked is the latest film to star a cast member of “The Expendables”, The film is about a tough-as-nails 

agent named Ross (Randy Couture), who is on the trail of a crime syndicate known as “The Tribe”. But when the crime syndicate takes hostage of the plane that belongs to the world’s richest industrialist, they demand billions or they’ll start killing hostages. Unfortunately for them, Ross is on the plane. They pissed off the wrong agent, as he’s willing to stop them to save his ex-fiancé. Now, the agent is very determined bring down this organization once and for all.

This film was just horrible. Let’s start with the directing. I didn’t like the directing of this film, one bit. Brandon Nutt’s direction was flat out lifeless. First, I never thought the villains put fear in me. The performances were very soft spoken for most of the film and these people weren’t interesting.  I want my villains to at least put some fear into you, so that it gets you into the flow of the film. This just didn’t do it for me. The other thing that I didn’t like was Randy Couture’s performance. There was no attempt to help him bring a tough guy image to his character. The sad thing is that he actually can do that, as proof in “The Expendables”. Here, it was the combination of not having experience as a lead actor and the fact that he isn’t given anything to do. I wanted more from the acting aspects, but you don’t get it here.

Also, I didn’t think Nutt did a good job handling the action scenes. Most of the sequences felt bland and very basic. Those are things that you don’t want to see, when you’re watching an action film. I want to see scenes that get your adrenalin going. This film doesn’t have that. Maybe it was because the action was confined, but you need the action to have some suspenseful elements.  This film doesn’t have that and you stuck watching a film that has uninteresting action sequences.

The script written Declan O Brien wasn’t any better. One of the things that I didn’t like about the script, the film felt like a typical paint by the numbers action film. It felt that way for over two thirds of the story.  O’Brien doesn’t do anything to make this story feel interesting. It was like; he was trying to cram action scenes into the story without developing the characters. With that, the characters and especially the villains aren’t developed to the point that you’re interested.  The other thing this screenplay lacks is any interesting characters. In an action film to work, you have to have interesting characters. There weren’t any interesting characters that make you care about the film. The characters felt very flat and very one dimensional. It’s hard to get excited for a film, when the characters are flat out dull.

Overall, this was a very disappointed film considering the cast. “Hijacked” is a very boring film with very dull characters. It will hijack your time for all the wrong reasons.

That’s why “Hijacked” is a “Screener from Hell”.