The Hijacking of Bus 657 - Blu-Ray

Movie: Casino clerk Vaughn (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is desperate. He needs money for a life-saving operation for his young daughter. A lot of money. In desperation, he asks his boss Pope (Robert De Niro) for a loan. But Pope doesn't give handouts - and he makes no exception for a loyal employee like Vaughn. When he reacts angrily to the rejection, Pope unceremoniously throws him out. Now there seems to be only one chance to save his daughter's life: Vaughn must team up with his shady colleague Cox (Dave Bautista) and raid the casino. After all, there's plenty of money from illegal transactions stored in the belly of the casino ship. Hijacking it seems like a surefire deal. But of course everything that can go wrong does, and soon Vaughn and his accomplices find themselves on the run from Pope's trigger-happy henchmen and the police. And so they are left with only one way out: they must hijack a city bus in the hope that it will get them out of this alive.

After the extremely bloody action thriller The Tournament, director Scott Mann now presents a somewhat tamer follow-up with The Hijacking of Bus 657, which starts out as a classic heist movie and then turns into a Speed-style action film with set pieces from thriller dramas such as John Q. The film is a bit of a mess. Although the whole thing never reaches the class of the obvious role models and was also quite obviously implemented with a relatively small budget and therefore has a certain B-movie character, the flick still offers pleasantly entertaining entertainment and decent suspense.

Although the script does not put any award-winning dialogue into the mouths of the actors, especially Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Robert De Niro do their thing really well. It's true that De Niro seems a bit bored at the beginning, especially since his character here really isn't much more than a walking cliché. But when the casino boss is given a little more facets, this also makes itself felt positively in the play of the two-time Oscar winner. The rest of the cast doesn't exactly act award-worthy. Nevertheless, they all put in solid performances, which can sometimes cover up the dramaturgical weaknesses and logic holes.

Whoever is not looking for more than solid action with some decent show values and a few surprising plot twists, will be very well served here. Only those who can't overlook a lack of originality and the use of common clichés might get a little annoyed here and there. But overall, there is a more than deserved for this fast-paced hostage situation: worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: The image of the Blu-ray impresses with a decent image sharpness, which also allows many smaller details to come into their own very well. Coloration is very atmospheric, and smudges or other visible weaknesses are not apparent. The slight blurring, which is especially noticeable in the many dark scenes, is a deliberately used stylistic device to emphasize the slightly dirty look of the film.

The sound shows its strengths especially in the action sequences. In addition to the well intelligibly mixed dialogues, sound effects such as gunshots, explosions or squealing car tires repeatedly provide powerful movement in the multichannel range. Good!

Extras: In addition to eight interviews with the actors, the director and the screenwriter, the disc also includes the trailer and a look behind the scenes (approx. 15:29 min.). Not really outstanding, but well worth watching for interested viewers.

Conclusion: The Hijacking of Bus 657 is actually a typical direct-to-video production with a high B-movie flair. Nevertheless, the production can convince in terms of craftsmanship, as well as the actors, who defy almost all script weaknesses. The result is an entertaining and thrilling thriller, which does not revolutionize the genre, but can absolutely satisfy its target audience. The Blu-ray presents the film in good to very good picture and sound quality. Only the bonus material is a little too inconsequential. But the bottom line is enough for an absolutely satisfied: Recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp