7500

Director: Patrick Vollrath
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Omid Memar, Aylin Tezel, Carlo Kitzlinger, Murathan Muslu, Aurélie Thépaut, Paul Wollin
Runing Time: 92 min.
Rating: R

★★★ (out of ★★★★)
 
After a four year hiatus, Joseph Gordon-Levitt returns to the screen in Amazon Studios' self-contained hijacking thriller, 7500, a well put together, highly competent action excursion made in a similar vein to United 93. Putting on no false pretenses, writer and first-time feature director Patrick Vollrath makes it clear early he's under no illusions that this will in any way be a mainstream air disaster movie meant to "entertain" audiences with fantastic shootouts, incredible CGI, or villains being sucked into a plane's engine. We already have Liam Neeson movies for that. In his feature directorial debut, Vollrath instead gains points for both honesty and consistency, entering a pact to show a methodical, almost documentary-like account of every pilot and passenger's worst nightmare, without violating common sense. That's harder than it seems, and some more impatient viewers probably won't be along for the ride, which is a shame since the exceptionally tight screenplay builds to a sort of claustrophobic chaos that recalls other single location exercises like Phone Booth, Buried, Frozen and ATM. But mostly to its advantage, this takes itself a little more seriously.

You may as well title this, Cockpit, as all the action that takes place over its running time occurs within that constricted location, with a co-pilot suddenly forced to make life or death decisions when trapped in worst case scenario. There's initially a low-key rythem to the proceedings, but once the inciting event occurs and the focus shifts to JGL having to pull off a fairly challenging role with intelligence and believability, it becomes a pressure cooker. It isn't necessarily full of twists or turns, but is instead a well-paced, efficiently made pot boiler that makes logical sense, proving to be the ideal comeback vehicle for its star, while hopefully serving as a warm-up for another upcoming round of great performances in higher profile projects for him. Due to his work and a tight script, it all comes together surprisingly well, making for a tense 91 minutes.

Co-pilot Tobias Ellis (Gordon-Levitt) is preparing to embark on a flight from Berlin to Paris with pilot Captain Michael Lutzmann (Carlo Kitzinger), with both exchanging pleasantries while doing their checks before take-off. Tobias' girlfriend, Gökce (Aylin Tezel) is one of the flight attendants on board, as well as the mother of their son, and after a brief debate about which school he should attend, they're airborne. Once in flight, the cockpit is infiltrated by terrorist hijackers, who stab Lutzmann to death, while seriously injuring Tobias, who manages to fight them off long enough to lock two out of the cockpit while tying up their unconcious partner in the jumpseat.

After unsuccessfully attempting to revive the pilot as the terrorists bang violently on the cockpit door to get in, Tobias gets in touch with ground control, who inform him he'll need to make an emergency landing and warn not open that door for any reason, even as the hijackers threaten to execute hostages if he doesn't. With the PA system serving as his only conduit to the cabin, he must instruct the passengers while negotiating for their lives with the youngest terrorist, Vedat (Omid Memar), with whom he begins to form a connection. But they want control of the plane, and will stop at nothing to insure Tobias doesn't safely land it. 

The opening close circuit airport footage of the suspicious men who will eventually be revealed as the hijackers announces right up front the kind of film Vollrath intends to make. And he mostly does just that, emphasizing the real-life stakes of the situation with a real-time, stripped down approach free of the usual bells and whistles you'd find in a cheesy thriller. It's much appreciated, especially when dealing with the early interplay between Tobias and Lutzmann, who both seem like friendly, competent pilots who respectfully converse like normal professionals, their focus remaining entirely on getting to their destination. No one's drunk, popping pills, having an affair, going through a divorce, or secretly working with the terrorists, as we've come to expect from action scripts of this sort. With just enough to summise these are decent, hard-working men with families and no more, the hijacking feels even more like like a genuine interruption of their everyday lives, without any other plot device getting in the way of the trauma at hand. And other than fleeting glimpses on the cockpit's monitor, we don't actually see the passengers or cabin, conveying the attack as more immediate and personal for the pilots.

For a while it feels very real, especially when Tobias has to make some serious ethical decisions when the lives of the passengers and flight crew are threatened. Of course, his girlfriend is one of them, and when she's inevitably introduced into the equation the movie starts to go a little more over-the-top. But JGL keeps it grounded as an everyman who's understandably overwhelmed and scared, but clearly determined to do the right thing to get everyone out of this. He rarely wavers on exactly what that is, while remaining flexible enough to make adjustments to that game plan along the way. Everything taking place within only a few feet of space only serves to heighten the claustrophobia within the cockpit as it becomes clear that, despite the many lives in peril, it all rides on Tobias' actions and reactions. 

While movie's synopsis heavily emphasizes the commonalities Tobias discovers he shares with one of his hijackers, it's at best an overstated aspect of the story and at worst a cautious, preemptive apology for depicting foreign terrorists. It's almost as if out of guilt, Vollrath attempt to elicit an enormous amount of sympathy for one of them. He's well-played by Omid Memar in an appropriately panicked performance that adds a lot of juice to the third act as he battles his conscience and fear, but a transparent attempt at trying to show that terrorists are "just like us" is beneath a film as smart as this. That and that old trick of convincing the hijacker they're refueling the plane for their escape are about the only reminders of a popcorn-style crowd pleaser.

So steeped in his commitment to docu-style realism, we don't put it past Vollrath to kill off his protagonist, whom Gordon-Levitt plays with enough desperation and single-minded focus to sell the idea of him saving the lives of these passengers at the expense of his own. But the presentation of the young, frightened hijacker does pretty much foreshadow an ending that occurs exactly how and where it should, heightening the feeling that what we're watching takes place in real time. There's a sense of relief and satisfaction for viewers when that door finally opens, and what could have easily been another routine action entry overperforms, providing a solid template for how this kind of thriller can be executed under the most disciplined of circumstances.