7500 (2019)

"Low on fat and high in tension, this impressive airline thriller doesn’t waste a second of its 93-minute running time. With a camera that refuses to leave the cockpit, writer-director Patrick Vollrath traps the viewer with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s wounded co-pilot during a mid-air hijacking."

"A kind of United 93-meets-Paradise Now by way of Flight Plan, Patrick Vollrath’s nailbiting and nerve-shredding feature debut is undoubtedly this year’s Hotel Mumbai."

"At heart, a chamber piece. The setting, the number of characters and the setup are all constrained in an elegant yet dramatically effective way that belies the film's low budget."

"Compact, edge-of-the-seat storytelling that makes good use of Joseph Gordon Levitt’s decent, appealing everyman persona, 7500 may have its flaws but it still marks an impressive feature debut for Vollrath."

"This is one well-made thriller, and for a director who wants to work in that genre, this is as strong a first feature as any filmmaker could hope for."

"Intended as a 90-minute nail-biter, the movie starts off strong but loses steam about halfway through and never quite recovers."

"Convenient plot twists undermine its early pretense that it’s aiming for something other than to exploit our deepest, most regressive fears."

"For its first half, 7500 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."