Rating: D+
7500 is the kind of movie that wears its heart on its sleeve. What you see here is what you get, and it never tries to be anything other than what it is. Which is, in retrospect, an incredibly bold move considering how clichéd and paint by numbers the film actually is.
It’s not so much that the film from writer/director Patrick Vollrath is bad as it is incredibly tiresome, predictable, and unnecessary. What was, I am sure, intended to be a statement, evinced by its use of the quote, “An eye for an eye makes the world blind,” in the film’s opening, is, instead, a profoundly tedious and dull affair whose noble intentions fall with a deafening thud.
Billed as a suspense thriller, the only suspense I found myself in was the anticipation that sooner or later the film’s 90 minutes would run out and that I would be free. This, even despite an admittedly great performance from star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who somehow managed to find something to bring to this otherwise flat and generic script.
Gordon-Levitt stars as Tobias, the co-pilot of a German flight who’s excited to buy a house with the mother of his child, stewardess Gökce (Aylin Tezel). Shortly after takeoff, however, Tobias finds himself going up against a gang of terrorists who seek to takeover and crash the plane to avenge their fallen comrades and countrymen.
Much of the film consists of Gordon-Levitt sitting alone in the cockpit while the gang bangs on the door and threatens the passengers. The actor, for his part, does a remarkable job conveying the fear of Tobias who not only must worry about landing the plane before they get into the cockpit as well as the well-being of his passengers, but also for the safety of his girlfriend, whom he cannot reach without endangering the plane and everyone onboard.
In a way, 7500 feels a lot like David Fincher’s Panic Room, except that it’s set on a plane and lacks any of the nuance that made Fincher’s film a classic. Where Fincher gave us villains with complex personalities and desires, Vollrath gives us caricatures who could be anyone. Where Panic Room gave us Hitchcockian thrills and bone chilling suspense, 7500 gives us the emotional equivalent of a Lifetime original.
Vollrath sure does try, though. We get attempts at understanding the terrorist’s position with the character of Vedat (Omid Memar). His interactions with Tobias are meant to show the innate humanity of the hijackers. He’s a young man and is having second thoughts about the plan once it’s in motion. Memar does a fine job at conveying Vedat’s fears, and his interactions of with Gordon-Levitt are interesting enough, in theory. However, even then, both actors are hindered by the script which is at no point concerned with presenting fully fleshed out and real characters.
Despite the best efforts of its cast, 7500 is too hindered by a dull and derivative script to achieve anything close to cruising altitude. The thrills are lame and the suspense is scant in this dud, which isn’t even worth the free watch on Amazon Prime.
7500 is now available to stream on Amazon Prime.
