7500 (2019)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
First Officer Tobias Ellis	Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Vedat	Omid Memar	½
Gökce	Aylin Tezel	-
Captain Michael Lutzmann	Carlo Kitzlinger	-
Kinan	Murathan Muslu	-
Daniel	Paul Wollin	-
Nathalie	Aurélie Thépaut	-

Review

In everything from scope to execution, this is a classic made-for-TV-movie – in our day and age meaning made-for-streaming. It’s the feature film debut for German filmmaker Patrick Vollrath, who shows that he is not afraid to tackle controversial subjects and is also looking for nuance in situations that are often construed as binary. There have been a few films about air terrorism in the wake of 9/11, most notably United 93 and Flight 93, and Vollrath’s story is tapping into that same segment, but arguably with a little less validity. The film’s best achievement is the tension and suspense it creates – especially in its first half – using only one location and a handful of actors. The ever-dependable Joseph Gordon-Levitt is part of the reason the film works so well; his ability to convey repressed anxiety and collected focus transports you into that cockpit with him. Unfortunately, reaching the 90-minute-mark ultimately becomes a burdensome task for Vollrath. His film runs out of steam and the director is forced to engage the autopilot in order to reach his somewhat anticlimactic conclusion.