I winded up liking 7500 a lot more than I thought I was going to. I really only watched it because there were no other new releases that interested me this past week, and this is free on Amazon Prime. But I had looked at the plot description on IMDB, and it was something extremely generic like “a plane is hijacked by terrorists.” However, 7500 surprisingly has a lot more going for it than you would think.

In 7500, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who we just don’t see enough of anymore, in my opinion) plays an airplane pilot named Tobias. After getting into the air, the plane gets hijacked by three Muslim men. Their intentions are only vaguely talked about in the movie, but it seems like a personal vendetta against Americans. Anyway, though, the entire duration of the movie takes place in the pilot’s cockpit, showing how Tobias is trying to get through the situation. While I love the single location gimmick in general, I think it works really well for something like 7500 because it allows you to feel as trapped as Tobias does in this situation.

The biggest thing that really ended up surprising me about 7500 was its pacing. The movie is actually a really slow burn, but it balances that by only having a 90 minute runtime. Once again, I think this was ultimately a smart choice for the movie, though, because the reason a lot of these terrorist movies end up feeling generic nowadays is because they usually have that fast-paced, high-octane, over-the-top action going on, and 7500 doesn’t feel like that at all. The movie smartly sets the pace from the very beginning, by just showing silent airport security footage of the terrorists going through the airport and boarding the plane. This slow pacing also helps the single-location aspect of the movie, because it feels like it’s all happening in real time with Tobias, and that adds to the overall tension.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like 7500 is one of my absolute favorite movies now or anything, but it did end up feeling refreshing to me, which was surprising because I was preparing to watch a generic action thriller. An otherwise uninspired premise winds up being elevated by an unorthodox pacing, a great performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and an inescapable feeling of tension that’s created by its single-setting style. I won’t go as far as to say that this is a must-watch in the genre, but it is definitely worth it if you’re looking for something to watch.

4/5