The name Joseph Gordon-Levitt naturally drew my attention to watching this Austrian-German film called '7500'.
The term '7500' is used in aviation activities as an aviation code in the event of a hijacking. And by the way, about professional terms, this is a plus of this film, all the aviation scientific terms in the film are applied correctly (as far as I am personally aware), the film tried to show the aviation theme and how everything is furnished in the cockpit, and the control of the aircraft itself.
And as usual by the rules, the control of the passenger aircraft is carried out by the captain and co-pilot. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a co-pilot named Tobias from the United States, and the captain of the passenger flight is a German named Michael. The plane makes a small flight from Berlin to Paris, and literally less than half an hour later, a riot occurs in the plane, several Muslims break into the cockpit of the captain and pilot, from one they managed to fight back and close the door, the others threaten to kill the passengers, but Captain Michael was mortally wounded and Tobias had to solve the entire conflict alone.
As I mentioned, from a technical point of view, there are no complaints about the film, after the attack on the cockpit of the pilot and captain, Tobias also communicates with the control room, and the half-light cockpit also creates an atmosphere of reality.
I’ve always been fascinated by films where actors play in confined and confined spaces, like Locke with Tom Hardy, Buried Alive with Ryan Reynolds, and the recent Guilty with Jake Gyllenhaal, I loved it too. Such films always create intrigue and attract attention in a limited space and on a limited circle of people involved in the film. In this case, the main character is Gordon-Levitt, a very talented and interesting actor (his “Snowden” I really liked), of course he was attracted to the idea of playing in such a film, but despite this, he was not able to fully realize his potential, and not because he lacks talent, but because the story and plot of the film are to some extent inferior, as well as the motives of the invaders or terrorists, and to say about the hijackers of the plane, how many times already in the films there was a topic of infring Muslims and about their religion, about self-sacrifice and about Allah (when I did not even have a little respect for the terrorists), but also because I did not even a guy from them, I could not even say that I did not even have a little bit of the attack. I was able to predict the end of the movie.
In the end, '7500':
Director Patrick Vollrath, on the one hand, managed to create a realistic dramatic atmosphere of the film about the capture of the plane and shoot as realistic a film as possible, on the other hand, the story of the film looks a little unsaid and a little “failed”, but the status of “guest star” Joseph Gordon-Levitt worked, but even he failed to fully reveal.
“7500” made in Germany and Austria at first impression leaves in a slight confusion. The claustrophobic subcombatant about the hijacking of an aircraft, from and to filmed in an extremely compact location of the pilot cockpit, on the one hand, resembles the “United 93” of Greengrass, and on the other hand, the chamber monodrama “Locke”, in which Tom Hardy does not leave the driver’s seat of the car.
Visual volume adds the doorway (and the camera screen above it), a slightly defocused space behind the windows and the light of the dashboard – but still it is extremely small and not even quite clear how in such a space the creators manage to keep the intense attention of the viewer and unfold the eventful narrative.
In the main role - the co-pilot of the captured plane - good Gordon-Levitt, the status of "guest star" he perfectly works out, showing a full emotional palette, from despair to doomed concentration.
But here’s what is interesting – with all the audience’s inclusion in what is happening (“what will happen next?”) and empathy does not leave a sense of the reality of events, as if you are watching not a feature film, but a cold dock, where the camera simply and indifferently captures what is happening. This unexpected contrast as a well-conscious technique is the undoubted merit of the director (the full-length debut of the German Patrick Vollart, previously noted, by the way, with gold in Cannes for a short meter).
Dialogues and cues are just as much a part of reality here, and the limitedness of space rhymes with the limited choice for all the actors in this drama, in which any decision made leads to defeat. And a closed space suddenly becomes a metaphor for the same closed modern world, where we are all somehow connected to each other, affect everything and everyone - and depend on each other as much.
It is difficult to approach this film with categories like / dislike. But if you accept his rules of the game, he won't let go for long. I recommend it.
Even though 7500 isn’t a very long movie, cutting screen time by half an hour would make it a perfect thriller. Sixty minutes of what is happening on the screen is a real holiday for lovers of action films: the tension increases every minute, forcing viewers to bite their nails, and the scene (the cockpit of the aircraft) somehow disposes to claustrophobia. Unfortunately, after a key narrative point, "7500" becomes unnecessarily ... uncertain, and then the script bumps into a cliché minefield on its way to a predictable and not entirely satisfactory conclusion.
The title "7500" refers to the emergency code for a hijacking, so there's nothing mysterious about the plot's starting point. In the cockpit are German pilot Michael and co-pilot – American Tobias. Preparing a regular flight for a short distance in Europe - Berlin-Paris. One of the flight attendants is Tobias's girlfriend and the mother of his young son. About 20 minutes after the film began, shortly after takeoff, a small group of typical Middle Eastern terrorists brandishing knives made of glass storm the cockpit. One pilot was injured, Tobias was injured, but still the guy managed to fight back and barricade himself. Terrorists are unable to get through a reinforced door and a confrontation begins between the co-pilot and enemies who seized the plane.
All in all, the 7500 starts off pretty cheerfully. The early moments worked well: the installation effectively plays on the personality of the central hero. Tobias is our guide to the 7500 world, and we see it through his eyes. The game of cat and mouse was exciting. The choice of the director to maintain Aristotelian unity of action, time and space in general makes 7500 as close to reality as possible. Interesting details of this approach: the action of the film is almost completely chronologically verified with real flight, i.e. the film is shot almost "in real time"; everything happens only in the cockpit; the list of characters is limited, so that we almost do not see passengers. However, this slightly dragged the new director into the zone of creative limitations, because there is very little space for characters and actions in the cockpit, and you need to fill 90 minutes of timekeeping with something. Although all the actions in the film are competently organized, the general scarcity of the narrative leads to disappointing conclusions.
"7500" simply cannot support the height of tension reached in the early scenes. The interaction between Tobias and one of the terrorists seems artificial: dialogues are as inconclusive as the terrorists' motives. The more filmmaking goes into the realm of melodrama, the less interesting the film becomes. Real-time action is a trap closer to the climax: it is very difficult to effectively develop characters and/or circumstances. Even Tobias, who appears on the screen almost every minute of the film, is for the most part a hero-dummy.
But the technical side was successful. "7500" features a precise re-creation of the cockpit, giving the film a sense of realism. Dim cockpit lighting was particularly successful in several tense scenes. As for acting, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was probably attracted by the idea of acting in a limited space. At the same time, of course, due to certain script flaws, it is hardly possible to call “7500” – a demonstration of acting skills. Gordon-Levitt has talent, the film is testing his preparation, but the actor could be replaced by someone else; here he is not an anchor.
The thriller deftly uses limited space and realistic details to cultivate tension, but it’s not always possible to look at the project soberly. Director Patrick Vollrath's debut was undoubtedly original, given the main highlight - the action takes place inside the cockpit and is entirely focused on the hero of Joseph Gordon-Levitt. However, something is missing: perhaps some scale of what is happening. The attack in the view of Vollrat turned out to be too mundane and even banal, and although the creative approach should be commended, since in 7500 death and injury really mean something, in general the project lacks real characters and drive - the script loses its fuse halfway to the finale and does not even try to restore it.
7500 is a defiantly personalized tragedy compressed inside the enclosed space of the cockpit of a plane captured by religious fanatics who are about to travel with its uninformed passengers to their forefathers, where the barely surviving co-pilot, who is gathered to crash into an emergency airfield without unlocking the door when hostages are killed behind it, retains relative control of the situation.
This is a complete disappointment for fans of militants with heroes galloping outside on the planes of the liner or, hiding, preparing to attack criminals from the inside: Joseph Gordon Levitt has one free chair and a narrow passage behind his back, and we practically find ourselves in his own skin, looking at the narrow screen of the “intercom”, where the demonic people blackmail the stunned pilot who continues to perform an interrupted flight according to the instructions.
The lack of drive does not mean a lack of nerves, either on the part of the pilot or on behalf of some aggressors, who have only now learned about the colors of their prospects, and the internationality of the crew adds additional facets of the situation, since the cockpit door separates the American pilot from the girlfriend of half-Turkish blood in the cabin and he has to keep in mind a debt to their common child.
At some point, there are three people in the cockpit, but the soon restored parity of forces raises the intensity of emotions, connecting the hysterical guy performed by Omid Memar to the Levitt benefit, adding new facets to a completely uncomplicated plot, where there are no obvious indications of problems or phenomena, but doubts with which Tobias Ellis is trying to return them both to the ground, and a point of no return arises, which at some point each of them will feel, realizing the inevability of the coming disaster.
The sedentary action is devoid of any visual spectacle, even the fighters accompanying the liner appear flickering lights silhouettes in the dim glass of the side window, and then, on the ground, everything is also blurred or completely removed away, and all the activity is reduced to the reactions of two people to the blows of ruthless circumstances, carrying the crackling of psychological fractures of exhausted parties, which does not give me the right to call this a movie special, nor even more mandatory, to take time from you to watch it.
The story tells about the co-pilot of the plane Tobias, who alone confronts a group of inhospitable terrorists at an altitude of 9000 meters. The aviator locked himself in the pilot’s cockpit, trying to hold the aircraft with one hand, and the second to negotiate with the rude invaders.
An intense thriller from German guys, capable of making the viewer nervously eat his fingernails, worrying about the main character and the fate of all passengers. The situation is constantly inflamed by noises and screams from the cabin of the plane, knocking at the door, a black and white picture from the surveillance camera, hostages with sharpening at the throat - these elements inflame a frightening and panicky atmosphere, causing bouts of claustrophobia. Adds fuel to the fire and Tobias himself, the suffering mine of which is simply impossible to look without sympathy and compassion.
In addition, the film touches on the topic of immigrants who flooded Germany. Newcomers are dissatisfied with how they are treated by the state, which gave shelter, and the indigenous people are disliked by the “inhabited”. A closed circle in which ordinary people suffer, while the government does not care about the current situation.
The film is slightly in a hurry in its narrative, because of which sometimes the emotional return from what is happening is lost. This is a superficial acquaintance of the two pilots, fleeting dialogues with the flight attendant (the wife of the pilot), undisclosed characters of terrorists. Of course, all these are nitpicks on small things that do not spoil the tape.
Moral: Travel by train - it is pointless to steal them.
As a result, the thriller is able to keep in tension and tickle the nerves.
The presence and play of Joseph Gordon-Levith adds to this tape of class, but the misunderstanding of the problem that the authors tried to convey in their story negatively affects the quality of the narrative. The actions of the tape practically do not leave the cockpit, on one of the flights from Berlin, an attempt is made to hijack the aircraft, the 7500 does not have sophisticated scenes and locations and tries to create an atmosphere around the situation.
It is worth noting the director, the atmosphere was recreated – a lot of aviation jargon, the standard behavior of crew members is familiar to almost all of us, but there comes a moment when the film counts the “thriller” and with this Patrick Vollrat had problems. First of all, this concerns the caricature of the “hijackers” themselves, whose motives remain unclear, and the standard “for brothers and sisters” in such a topic has long failed.
I also did not like the connection of the main character with one of the hijackers, a young guy who succumbed to the influence of older people and who was driven into a psychological corner. Gordon-Levith’s parallel connection to one of the flight attendants, on the other hand, adds to the drama’s stories, but against the background of the rest of the characters, it looks just a small glimpse in the dark.
As a result, an acceptable one-time film with more than decent acting by Joseph Gordon-Levith, having its own atmosphere in front of the audience. But poorly written secondary characters and the epilogue of the story, still leave this tape in the classroom for a one-time viewing.
5 out of 10