Review of Hijack Stories

Introduction

Hijack Stories was made in 2000 by Oliver Schmitz and tells the story of a classically trained South African actor, Sox, who goes "undercover" in Sowetto to improve his chances of winning a role as a gangster in a TV show. He turns to his old school friend who introduces him to Zama, who happens to be a real gangster and slowly Sox gets drawn into his new life...

Video

The video is presented in 4:3 full-frame and is of reasonable quality on the whole, although some segments of footage used are a bit low resolution. The main feature however is quite well presented, although a little grainy and slightly lacking in focus at times. In addition, some pan shots are a little jerky.

Visually, the film makes good use of location, with plenty of colourful characters in the shantytown, all of which is well filmed in a documentary style.

Audio

The soundtrack is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, and isn`t especially exciting, with the sound and effects concentrating on the front three speakers along with the dialogue.

The dialogue itself is clear and understandable. The movie doesn`t have any soundtrack as such, music is played on radios etc in the houses, which is a shame, because a lot of it is quite good.

Features

The only extra feature on the disc is the trailer, accessible through rather dull Momentum standard static menus.

Conclusion

Overall, Hijack Stories doesn`t offer a great deal new, but the South African setting and cast make the film worth watching as a nice alternative to the mass produced Hollywood output.

The cast are quite good, confidently playing their parts, whilst the use of locations is excellent.

In summary, not an especially interesting movie, but worth a look if you fancy something a little less mundane to watch.