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You won't be disappointed!

Powerful

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

A truck transports very important content, but the driver (David Janssen) is unclear what the content is?I am the seventh person to review this film! However, I don't think that figure suggests a lack of interest in this TV movie, but rather a lack of worldwide screenings: I don't think anybody has seen it! (I just found it on YouTube).I did not turn to this flick because I am big on truck movies. I went to it because I like David Janssen, who is best known as Richard Kimble in QM's The Fugitive series (1963-67).Kimble was on the road for 120 Fugitive episodes and he always found time to find a cute girl, well guess what...both things happen all over again in this film! But that is good, this sort of feels like "The Fugitive: Six Years Later" with ten times more action than usual.And as with all Fugitive episodes, it is very well scripted. Hijack might not be the most memorable flick ever made, but it is very well made with fine location filming, action, gun play and a great ending!

It would be interesting to learn who originated this story of bamboozled couriers. Though this movie was made in 1974, a 1963 story by Gene Roddenberry appeared as The Virginian episode 1:29, 'Run Away Home' featuring this same basic plot with the same slug-fisted ending. I remember seeing it reworked again in 1988 as Miami Vice 5:6, 'Line of Fire' where Sonny Crockett is transporting a 'top secret' witness. Another variant is Airwolf 3:18, 'Hawke's Run'. Does anybody remember any other variations? I am sure there must be more. This plot-line seems to be another one of those television tropes that pops up every few years wearing another hat or in this case, being transported by another vehicle, i.e. horse, truck, or boat.

This TV movie was Black Dog, Thunder Run and The Road Warrior all rolled into one, though it was made before the others. David Janssen from the TV series The Fugitive is a truck driver who has lost his truck driving license. It will be temporarily reinstated if he drives a load from Los Angeles to Houston, and, upon completion of the run, it will be permanently reinstated. Gee, can the law really be manipulated like that? Didn't that happen in Black Dog? Keenan Wynn plays his co-driver. They drive one of the White Freightliner cabovers popular at that time. Along the way, people try to highjack the load. Gee, didn't that happen in Thunder Run? They stop for a while in the desert. Will they make it to Houston? And what were they hauling, anyway?

I have recently gotten into TV movies out of the 70's and been trying to track them down anyway that I can find them. I was fortunate to run across this on a compilation DVD at Suncoast with some other trucker movies.Well on to the review, this movie does look dated because it was made in 1973, major league 70's fashion along with clothes,cars and even the eighteen wheelers that were used in the movie.(SPOILERS) The story revolves around two truckers who are offered a substantial amount of money to take a big rig from Los Angeles to Houston, Texas. Along the way a group of individuals try to stop them anyway they can even if they have to kill them to do it. The acting by the two leads David Janssen and Keenan Wynn are quite good and keep the movie going along. I was surprised at how well some things that were handled, along with the photography and stunts. The Dialog is not great but for a TV movie it was a nice waste of time as opposed to some of the major movies that are put out nowadays. It's nice to know that some of the simple movies that were put out in the 70's are not lost, even if they were put out on TV.It's not great but it's not bad either.