Ever since 9/11 changed the way we approach air travel, it’s been harder to make airplane-based thrillers in the soapy-silly trash tradition of “Airport” or “Executive Decis…
For its first half, “” is briskly effective in a cold-sweat sort of way, carrying its audience from a smooth takeoff to the first signs of disturbance to swiftly cranked all-out terror with the kind of nervy efficiency you can admire without exactly taking pleasure in it. In more ways than one, however, Vollrath’s technically adroit film has trouble sticking the landing.
An eerie opening sequence, soundtracked only to an ambient industrial hum, immediately sets viewers on the alert, as it alternates between multiple security monitors in a Berlin airport — grazing over all the eventual attackers, it turns out, though the point is that pretty much anyone can look murkily suspicious in grainy CCTV video.
Needless to say, Vollrath’s script does not foreshadow lightly. Minutes after takeoff, three Muslim extremists attempt to storm the cockpit, their leader Kenan managing to enter before the security door is successfully shut. Michael is critically injured; from behind the door come further grisly sounds of struggle, though Tobias’ view is limited to the high, compressed angle of another single security camera. Vollrath, with the sharp aid of d.p.
Once anxious 18-year-old accomplice Vedat also breaks into the cockpit, however, “7500” loses tension as well as altitude.
Gordon-Levitt and Memar nonetheless play it for all the emotional agony it’s worth; their performances, together with the economical expertise of the film’s construction, keep “7500” cruising some way above B-movie level.
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