Staring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Omid Memar, Passar Hariky
Written by Patrick Vollrath and Senad Halilbasic,
Directed by Patrick Vollrath Run Time 1h 32m
When I was a kid, it was in movies that first discovered that I could tell a good guy apart from a bad one. You see then it was as simple as what you wear, bad guys always wore black, while good wore white. And while the outfits have changed, what they have been replaced with is ethnicity and nationality so that it is easy to tell who the bad guys are. In Patrick Vollrath’s feature debut, 7500 the bad guys are predictable and hold back what could have been a promising concept of a movie.
Tobias Ellis (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a co-pilot with an unnamed German airline company. As he readies the flight, he goes over the preflight conversation with his Captain, Michael (Carlo Kiltzlinger), while one of the stewardess named Gökce (Aylin Tezel) also helps get them settled for the flight. Everything checks out and it’s time to take off, but once in the air things get tense when one of the stewardess is bringing the pilots food, a group of men try and enter the cabin. Tobias is able to fight one back and get the door locked, but one man did get in and he is fighting with the Captain. Getting his footing, Tobias knocks out the assailant, but not before both he and the Captain are injured as they try and get the plane back on the ground. Tobias can’t use one of his arms and the Captain is not doing too well because of his injuries which leave Tobias having to land the plan as the remaining attackers try and break down the door to gain control on the cockpit. The clock is ticking and it will take everything Tobias has to make it through this.
Having a film in one location with someone by themselves can be quite the tension builder with the right actor. Gordon-Levitt delivers while the plane is in the air, but once it is on the ground the film loses most of what it had going for it. The intense nature of the situation is given a release when it could have given you more. You add to that the problems with what feels like villains that we have seen way too often, and you are left with a film that has a more of a ‘coach’ feel to it. Even with the failings of this film, I think Patrick Vollrath has some good movies in him and would say he is someone to watch over the next few years. I say that because there is enough to like here for the first half of the film to make you forgive how it ends. So put your tray tables up and buckle your seatbelts, because even though it maintains its altitude it’s still a bit of a bumpy ride, .
7500 is currently streaming on Amazon Prime
