7 Tage in Entebbe

Before I watched this I read a lot of reviews both the 1/10s and the 10/10s to see what I would make of it when I had finished watching.

In my opinion it is definitely not a 1/10 movie, but it is also not a 10/10 movie, there are a lot of things that could have been improved, but it did a reasonable job of retelling a rather well know chapter in our history. I have seen the original a few times and this stands up well against it for me.

Nothing came across biased against the Israelis, in fact they were shown in a far better light than they perhaps deserve. If anything I thought the movie biased against the terrorists, even though they were shown from a much more personal view then the original movie.

For me it really showed how much innocent people are used as pawns at the behest of political leaders of all persuasions.

Rosamund Pike and Daniel Brühl did a very good job in thier roles, as I expected them to do, they are top notch actors. Eddie Marsan was also excellent as Shimon Peres. The supporting cast were mostly excellent as well.

I think I saw the trailer for this once in recent months so it definitely wasn't on my radar at all. Had some time to kill today, so guess what? Was hoping for a solid thriller based on a real life event. Sadly, the film fails to tell a rather interesting story with the spark it probably deserves. I can see why this film sort of just snuck into theaters without a lot of promotion. Its just not very good, and is a forgettable film about an event that could have been adapted better.

The film follows the real life events of two German terrorists (Wilfried Böse and Brigitte Kuhlmann) who along with a group of Palestinian terrorists, hijack an airplane in 1976 in Entebbe, Uganda. Their hopes are to receive a ransom of 5 million for the passengers on board and the freedom of Palestinian soldiers captured in Israel. The film follows negotiation efforts and the ultimate retrieval of the hostages by the Israeli operative forces.

I'm not very familiar with a lot of Jose Padilha's work but his Robocop remake was a definite misfire. Even here we have an interesting event and two very talented co-leads but a story that is just so dull and boring. While the film is shot well, the merits of the writing fall very short. Its hard to care for what goes on when the film doesn't really attempt to entice you with any thrill, action, or moments to make it memorable.

The relevance of the film and incident is that it mirrors the hostility between Israel and Palestine today, a conflict that has stretched for decades. Other than that, Entebbe has good intentions but fails. It doesn't exactly have a voice or make a statement but just recreates the event in a half hearted way. The best part was that weird dance sequence performance that kept going on during the film.

5.5/10

Really intrigued by this rescue and also read books related to this hijacking. But the dance really created nonsense metaphor drama. Sorry but very pretentious. Anytime the dance comes on I just check my phone or use restroom except the last scene.

The ending was annoying mostly because of the frequent crosscutting between the dancing sequences and the action taking place. I don't know what it was supposed to mean, but it was just irritating. And there was a subplot with one of the Israeli soldier and his girlfriend, that didn't add anything to the story, why it was included is a mystery to me. the storyline was good but the slow pace didn't help it.

On the contrary, 7 days in entembbe was well-acted, and the cinematography was awesome. the score was amazing but can be overbearing at times.

The climactic of the incredible raid on Entebbe was hijacked by the inclusion of a dance routine (while perhaps interesting in a dance festival) that took the air out of what could have been an exciting film. The actual raid was a mishmash of random shooting, dancing, more shooting, more dancing.. The acting was satisfactory, especially the always impressive Eddie Marsan playing Shimon Peres. I could have been much better and would have been without the dance nonsense.