The number of films set on a plane doomed for disaster has been not only numerous but also of quite a different quality. Probably some of the earliest titles to appear in your mind might be the Airport saga (Airport, Airport 1975, Airport 1977 and Concorde… Airport ’79), films made in the 1970’s, a time in which Hollywood seemed obsessed on making one disaster film after another. It was at the beginning of the next decade when we got 1980’s Airplane!. Directed by the ZAZ trio -Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and David Zucker-, Airplane! was a parody of Zero Hour! -a film made in 1957- to the extent that it used the same plot and even characters.

In the following years we have seen films in which the main character has had to defend the plane from evil terrorists that have taken control of it. We have seen this perfunctory plot being repeated over and over, with different actors like Wesley Snipes in Passenger 57, Kurt Russell and Steven Seagal in Executive Decision, Liam Neeson in Non-Stop and even a real life pilot like Harrison Ford as the president of the U.S. himself in Air Force One.

However not all films centered around a plane are that similar, as on the complete opposite end of the scale, Clint Eastwood’s Sully, Robert Zemekis’s Flight and especially Paul Greengrass’ United 93 have put the emphasis on characters instead of on the action to tell real life stories. Furthermore, there have been other films with a slight twist to the story. For instance, the fun yet sadly underrated Red Eye, directed by Wes Craven in which the plane was only a location without an exit in which a psychopath -played by Cillian Murphy- tried to persuade a fellow passenger -Rachel McAdams- to assassinate a politician.

And how can we forget the self-consciously ridiculous Snakes on a plane. Please, I am serious, how can we forget that?

It is more than evident that there is something about setting a film inside of a plane that has proved to be engaging for audiences for more than 60 years. So, how does 7500 fit between amongst all of those? Luckily for us, it is a film closer to United 93 than to Passenger 57.

The feature length debut of Patrick Vollrath -who was nominated for an Oscar in 2015 for his short film Everything Will Be Okay– and starring Joseph Gordon Levitt, 7500 is the story of Tobias Ellis -Levitt-, the co-pilot on a flight to Paris, who has to fight against a group of terrorists that have hijacked the plane.

It is clear that Vollrath has learnt a thing or two from one of his teachers at university, Michael Haneke, as he shaped a relevant and meaningful story -he is also the author of the script-, but instead of exploring it against a wider backdrop, he has centered it around one character, and has limited it -mostly- to a single space, the cockpit of a plane.

The decision to confine the action to a unique location and around a character might bring to mind Steven Knight’s Locke and Rodrigo Cortes’ Buried. As it was in the case of these films, 7500 manages to explore the devastating consequences of the story through the actions of a single person who finds himself unable to escape and with no other alternative but to stand up to overcome a life changing threat.

7500 is a film that is not interested on a character fighting terrorists one by one and defeating them with his ingenuity and his killer one liners. Levitt’s character is not one of those action heroes that have almost limitless strength and perfect aim. He portrays a man who is well beyond his depth and has to do anything possible to fight and survive, even if that means making unbearably difficult choices. Thanks to Levitt’s skills, charisma and relatability it is easy to establish a connection to his character and feel the peril and the weight he is forced to carry around his shoulders.

Do not go to see 7500 expecting to be mesmerised by a great cast filled with big names as well as crazy special effects. You do not really need to see a CGI plane shaking up and down, in a dark stormy night. Instead you feel it from inside, you see the impact those movements have on the people inside of it, you feel the repercusions. This is a film made on a tight budget, but it is not constrained because of that, as Vollrath has built the film around its limitations.

7500 takes a story and a setting, which in other hands could have been turned into a run of the mill feature, and, thanks to Vollrath and Levitt’s talents combined, manages to be a thrilling experience as relentless as it is minimalistic -keep in mind it does not even have a soundtrack- which will keep you at the edge of your seat, especially if you have not buckled up your seatbelt -pun intended-.