'7500' minutes later, the movie ends
There used to be a lot of escapist movies about terrorists on planes (“Passenger 57,” “Executive Decision,” “Air Force One”). It’s obvious why there aren’t anymore.
What’s not obvious is why director/co-writer Patrick Vollrath thought he could write the following on a cocktail napkin and consider it a movie:
Hijackers take over a plane
The pilot must fend for himself
One terrorist doesn’t want to die
Stall stall stall
Roll credits
Fittingly, the IMDb summary for the 86-minute-and-still-exhausting “7500” just reads “A pilot's aircraft is hijacked by terrorists.” That’s 75% of the detail contained in the entire movie and should be enough to make anyone stay away from a so-called thriller that tries to split the difference between “Die Hard in the Sky” and real-time authenticity -- and winds up going nowhere.
The film’s last man standing is Tobias (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who hasn’t done much since 2016's “Snowden" and 2015's “The Night Before” and the horrible “The Walk”), a pilot whose significant other Gokce (Aylin Tezel) is a flight attendant simply for the film to exploit her being in danger. In the lead-up to the hijackers identifying themselves onboard, Vollrath demonstrates skill for the tension of silence: in the terrorists visible on cameras going through security and purchasing wine bottles before boarding (their only weapons are knives fashioned from glass), and in the eerie, pitch-black quiet of an overnight flight. Yet this fateful voyage from Berlin to Paris would be 500 times more striking if “7500” spent any time outside the cockpit, which becomes claustrophobic from a filmmaking standpoint but not an emotional one. And Vollrath doesn’t know how to go beyond cliches when observing the effect of Tobias needing to keep the cockpit door closed at all costs.
Plus, without giving too much away even though there’s almost nothing to give away, once Tobias correctly identifies that 18-year-old Vedat (Omid Memar) doesn’t share his collaborators’ opinions on murder and martyrdom, the movie seems to freeze mid-air, mistaking nothingness for suspense.
For a short time, it seems “7500” might vaguely seek to address loopholes in airport security when attackers technically follow the rules. But then it resorts to generic vengeance-seeking that glosses over all experiences and stereotypes about Muslims while also taking a too-innocent view of dangerous events to smooth over fears about the passengers. “7500” is made with neither the purpose and ability of “United 93” nor, on the fictional side of the spectrum, the crispness of a Liam Neeson terrorist whodunit like “The Commuter.”
Besides, Gordon-Levitt can’t carry such an uneventful movie like this (he needs to be on the move, like the underrated “Premium Rush”), and opening with a quote about retribution attributed to Gandhi is problematic for a lot of reasons. So from a political perspective, this is outdated and shallow. From a “Should I stream this while in quarantine?” perspective, it’s an empty vessel. Calling it snail-paced would be insulting to snails.
C-
Order “Zack Morris Lied 329 Times! Reassessing every ridiculous episode of ‘Saved by the Bell’ … with stats” (featuring interviews with 22 cast members, plus the co-founder of Saved by the Max and the creator of “Zack Morris is Trash”)