Nightsleeper’s nail-biting hackjacking has its hand firmly on the accelerator from the opening scenes as Leather’s sharply written and beautifully realised techno-thriller races towards its terminus with the velocity of a speeding bullet.
Over the past twenty years, our once-analogue world has been replaced by a digital one, with many of our services relying on servers and data hubs to function. Connected digital services now provide our news, doctors’ appointments, banking, and much of our transport network. Without online access, many of our crucial services would suddenly come to a standstill, with little to no analogue or physical infrastructure in place as a backup.
If people become agitated when Instagram is down for three hours, imagine a world where internet banking collapsed for weeks or months, or automatic signalling on our train services suddenly stopped, leading to chaos. We all know our digital services are increasingly more vulnerable to attack in our global digital world, but are we really ready for a hack that could bring down some of our primary services?
Written by BAFTA award-winning Nick Leather (The Control Room), the real-time thriller Nightsleeper asks us to face this very question as it accelerates out of the station at such a speed that it leaves you breathless. Mixing elements of the classic disaster movie with the energy of Jan de Bont’s Speed (1994) and the pace of Slow Horses and 24, Nightsleeper is an addictive, atmospheric and enthralling breakneck techno-thriller.
Cyberterrorists have seized control of an overnight sleeper train service from Glasgow to London by hacking the British rail system, enabling them to control elements of the fragmented rail network. On board the service is Joe (Joe Cole), an off-duty police officer with a skeleton in his closet, and a group of strangers thrown together by chance, including the Secretary of State for Transport (Sharon Small), a young boy separated from his mum, Mouse (Adam Mitchell), a furtive journalist, a buffet car waitress (Sharon Rooney) and a host of others. Meanwhile, Abby (Alexandra Roach), who was about to board a plane for a summer escape, finds her holiday plans abruptly cancelled as she heads back to her workplace, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), knowing the clock is ticking for the passengers and the agency in regaining control of the rail network and the runaway train.
In crafting Nightsleeper, Nick Leather plays with several classic disaster movie tropes from the Irwin Allen playbook, including passengers with closely guarded secrets, reluctant heroes, and disruptors. There are also nods to George Seaton’s much-parodied Airport (1970) as Abby and Co. scramble to find a solution to avert the oncoming disaster with only a single communication line to the stricken train.
As our driverless train speeds down the West Coast mainline, Leather’s modern techno-thriller beautifully explores the flaws of our digitally driven world, the ever-present vulnerabilities inherent in its design, and the state of our privately owned and operated railway, where a maze of operators separates trains, companies, and tracks. Here, Leather’s screenplay has more than a few digs at the previous government and their apparent disdain for maintaining public services; he even has a Transport Secretary called “Liz”, who worries more about her political image and ideology than her fellow passengers.
If all this sounds implausible, don’t be fooled. Nightsleeper may fit the mould of the classic, high-octane disaster thriller, but the notion of a hack on a rail network is not for the birds. The fear of a hack on British infrastructure continues to haunt many cyber experts, especially after decades of under-investment and privatisation driven by shareholder profits. In truth, the digital vulnerabilities at the heart of Leather’s thriller could equally apply to our water systems, the electricity grid, the NHS, and local government.
Some genuinely brilliant performances, alongside the assured direction of John Hayes (Dublin Murders) and Jamie Magnus Stone (Doctor Who), hold this nail-biting thriller together. Joe Cole is a relatable, reluctant hero who carries many of the same qualities as Keanu Reeves’ Jack Traven in Speed, as he is thrown into managing a runaway train and a ragtag bunch of travellers who want off. At the same time, Alexandra Roach’s rebellious Abby is an outsider in the NCSC sterile world of suits and rules, but she is the only person who can manage the events at play, and she is willing to break those rules to do it, bringing in a fellow outsider (David Threlfall) to help her decode the hack and save the train from impending disaster.
From its opening scenes, Nightsleeper’s nail-biting hackjacking has its hand firmly on the accelerator. Leather’s sharply written and beautifully realised mix of disaster-movie tropes, techno-thriller, and mystery is enthralling, addictive, and captivating as Nightsleeper races towards its terminus at the velocity of a speeding bullet. TV techno-thrillers don’t get much better than this.
Nightsleeper airs on BBC One from September 15 at 9pm, with all episodes available on iPlayer.
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