The Movie: 7500
The Director: Patrick Vollrath
The Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Omid Memar, Aylin Tezel, Carlo Kitzlinger,
Murathan Muslu, Paul Wollin
The Story: A pilot's aircraft is hijacked by terrorists.
The Review:
The way director Patrick Vollrath presents this story might make you think it is based on a true story although rest assured it is not. The story unfolds as an intense human drama and leaves behind big cinema heroics in an attempt to create a gripping thriller. The majority of the movie is told from inside the cockpit of the airliner which creates a very dark and claustrophobic feeling all the way through. Unfortunately, there just isn't enough going on to justify even the relatively slim hour and a half run time and I honestly kept wondering what the purpose of telling this story was.
The primary character of Tobias, who is an American pilot, is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and he gets the vast majority of the screen time. The performance is exactly what you are looking for and fits the tone of the movie perfectly. Joseph gives the character a very believable humanity and vulnerability and you fear for his well being throughout which also adds to the suspense of whether or not the terrorists will fail or succeed. I really liked how Tobias relied on his training as a pilot to get through the dangerous situations rather than all of a sudden being a weapon wielding bad ass for the sake of action.
As I mentioned the film is very dark and I mean that more than just visually. The realism and tension gets raised several notches as several of the characters are killed so there is real danger for everyone involved and you feel it in the intensity of each moment. Also factor in that Tobias has the weight of saving everyone on board as well as anyone who might be in the path of the passenger jet if the terrorists succeed in their plans to crash the plane. All that being said, I wish more thought had been put into creating a story that was more consistently good.
The Verdict:
7500 is an intense thriller that kept me engaged from beginning to end. The one drawback is that I'm not sure if this movie was really necessary. There is no messaging, the high jacking is something we've seen plenty of times and, while genuinely entertaining, it's just sort of there. Not a movie that will be super memorable but definitely worth checking out.
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