Movie Breakdown: 7500

Pre-Screening Stance:

Honestly, I’m so damn hungry for new releases that I’m happy to watch whatever anyone has for me. With that being said, Joseph Gordon-Levitt hasn’t starred in anything since 2016’s Snowden, so that’s at least one actual reason to be interested in 7500.

Post-Screening Ramble:

Despite being a purposely small film with a very trim runtime (it’s barely 90 minutes long), 7500 struggles to stay engaging. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Tobias, a young co-pilot who is about to make a flight from Berlin to Paris. His girlfriend, Gökce (Aylin Tezel), is a flight attendant on the same plane, but otherwise he doesn’t know anyone and so the first part of the film largely consists of small talk. Eventually, a group of men armed with makeshift weapons attempt to hijack the plane, but Tobias and the pilot, Michael (Carlo Kitzlinger), are able to maintain control of the cockpit. Bad stuff happens, hard decisions have to be made, everything is super tense, and then along comes the very mediocre third act of the film. For reasons I’ve yet to sort out, writer/director Patrick Vollrath takes his terse thriller about a man in an unwinnable situation and he injects it with a massive dose of melodrama. Ultimately, this grounds the movie right when it should soar.

7500 isn’t at all a bad film, and it’s certainly nice to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt back on the screen, but there’s just not a whole lot here that’s particularly memorable. If you’re going to rent it, keep those expectations in check.

One Last Thought:

As I was watching this movie, I couldn’t help but think that just one good, all-in, buckle up tight barrel roll would totally incapacitate the seemingly amateurish hijackers. Maybe I should ease up on the video games. Or, and hear me out here, maybe I should be a pilot. It’s definitely the latter.