The Red Sea Diving Resort

There was a time when people (well... mainly hippies) used to take adventurous trips to Afghanistan. Nowadays, it seems ludicrous to think about that country - and Sudan - as attractive holiday destinations.

However, this movie reminds us that not as far in time as Afghanistan - actually, in the early 80s - a Red Sea diving resort in Sudan was a covetable destinations for Germans and other tourists.

Even if it's hard to believe that an African country on the brink of massive upheaval was visited by tourists, people actually do lots of stupid things. In this case, silly tourists were nothing more than "probable collateral damage" IRL, a handful of agents operated the resort as a cover for a rescue scheme that went on for years unnoticed. The Ethiopian were carried by trucks to the resort and shipped over to Israel, until the final mission, when the last bunch was transported by plane, because Sudanese officials . In this sort of movie, you should expect most (all?) characters to be a bit stereotyped. They are very much so that I did not get the need to introduce them quite at length, since their background was irrelevant to the development of the plot.

For instance, the Alex Hassle Max Rose's character, seemed quite interesting as a forever hungry assassin, but there is no development nor much action for him (nor for the others).

However, this is quite good entertainment with a solid, humanitarian background and not too much violence, apart from a horrific scene in a refugee camp.

It's a very entertaining movie and it doesn't deserve the bad reception it got; the plot is good and the acting is decent; Jews have suffered greatly over several centuries and deserve respect.

Movies dealing with an exodus in the direction of the Holy Land are plethoric. I think in particular about Exodus (1960) with Paul Newman and directed by Otto Preminger and then about Geh und lebe (2005) as heartbreaking as moving. The Red Sea Diving Resort (2019) is clearly a popcorn version of a real mission organized by the Mossad in order to secretly evacuate Ethiopians who have fled their native country in complete food crisis, via an abandoned Sudanese hotel, the Red Sea Diving Resort.

By being slightly in bad faith, the expedition looks a bit like Captain America with his team of Avengers saving Ethiopians undeservingly persecuted by Sudanese. But the director Gideon Raff skillfully avoided falling into these clichés and the film is globally successful, although we are very far from a cinematographic masterpiece. I particularly appreciated the performance of Chris Chalk, Greg Kinnear and Ben Kingsley who highlight the intergalactic star Chris Evans.

PS: I remain stunned by the sterile duel between the two extremist groups « 10 of 10 » versus « 1 of 10 » who represent, on August the 1st, more than a third of the votes.

This film tells the story of a group of agents who go into Sudan to save a group of Jewish refugees.

The good number of stars attracted me to this film, and it turns out to be as good as one can expect. It is a tight drama that makes you want to find out what happens next. Furthermore, it is about an issue that people should care about. I think it is worth a good watch.

Much better than I thought. It is very well done: True stories are always the best. This is very well cast and directed. Chris Evans and Michael Williams are superb in their respective roles. Greg Kinnear and the rest of the cast are very good as well. A must see.