Mogadiscio, destination terreur

As a student I was part of - what we call now - the "68 generation". Protest was flowing over all major universities in Germany. This concentrated on the so called "establishment" and later on the Vietnam war was in the focus.

A perverted group of this protest movement was the "RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion)". The young German Republic was in no way prepared to give an appropriate response to these terrorists. The reactions of the government to the terror have been helpless and the police had no means to meet the aggressiveness and cynicism of these people. There was a climate of helplessness and hate all over the country.

The climax was in 1977 the kidnapping of Hans Martin Schleyer, a representative of the hated "establishment". The purpose of this kidnapping was to free other terrorists who were in jail in Stuttgart/South Germany.

The government, represented by Chancellor Helmut Schmidt refused this blackmail and so the terrorists asked their Palestinian friends for help. In the end a group of four PLFP (Popular Front of Liberation for Palestine) terrorists hijacked the German Lufthansa jet "Landshut" with over 80 tourists on board.

These are the facts and many documentations have analyzed this event.

The film which is no documentation - has a completely different approach and shows the "inside" view of this drama. As all passengers survived, there are many people who could tell what happened inside the plane during these long, dramatic hours. And this gives a lot of suspense - the story of the "Landshut" was never told like this before. You can feel the fear, panic and sometimes the hope of all the passengers who didn't have the foggiest idea of what happened outside - what their government did. They felt lost and given up by their country.

The movie shows in a stunning way the people acting inside and outside of the aircraft. So, as a viewer you have the complete picture of what happened and you get an idea about the fear and uncertainty of all persons involved in this dramatic situation.

The actors give a realistic picture of the situation and are brilliant, especially Saïd Taghmaoui as Mahmud, Thomas Kretschmann as captain and Herbert Knaup as commander of the special forces "GSG9". Also very good Nadja Uhl as stewardess and Christian Berkel impersonating chancellor Helmut Schmidt.

Even if you are not familiar with this part of the German history, this film is worth while to be seen.

Much of this film was shot at the old Casablanca airport as Royal Air Maroc has a 737 identical to 'Landshut' (the hijacked plane) which is grounded there. It was repainted in Lufthansa colours, and the cast was confined to the aircraft for up to 12 - 14 hours a day, so the feeling of being 'hijacked' was very real.... no breaks for long periods, very hot, quite an experience for the extras who made up the majority of the passengers.

Also, the whole film of the hijacking was shot 'in sequence' over ten days, and the 'passengers' were not briefed on how the 'hijackers' were going to behave, some of the fear you see is 'real', not acted. Even tho' you know it's just a prop, having a gun waved in your face when you are not expecting it is NOT a nice experience.

And very little make up and so on was used, putting on clothes dirty from yesterday at the start of each days filming really put us in the mood. If the film is as realistic to watch as it was to be part of, then it has to be a really good film - it hasn't come to Maroc yet, so all I've seen of it are the (video) rushes we were shown every evening.

Great acting and excellent visual effects, particularly the computer generated imagery of the hijacked plane, D-ABCE "Landshut" City Jet 737 looks really amazing, taking off, flying and landing. Of course, parking scenes and refueling scenes were done with the real aircraft on green screen. The aircraft looks so realistic and beautiful blue and yellow colored, thanks to the director and painting crew for adjusting and repainting the 1970s Lufthansa livery on CN-RMI resembling D- ABCE (Royal Air Maroc), literally! Portrays the 1977 hijacking beautifully colored and realistic. This closely follows the true plot. Great job to the researchers, producers and vfx team! Acting and performances, GREAT! The director chose an excellent German cast to play the roles, the hijackers/terrorists and including those who played the Arabs in Dubai and Yemen and the African actors playing the Somali dictator Siad Barre and the rest of the Somali forces communicating in Arabic, German and English. The hijackers swearing emphasizes their cruelty and anger and the props (guns, grenades, Che Guevara shirts etc) are also great. However, some scenes including the the Landshut landing, refueling and takeoff from Bahrain were missing. Other than that part, the filming scenes were so awesome, despite being shot in Germany and morocco, they looked like the actual places in 1977. Overall, i'd give this a 8.7 to 8.9 out of 10 as a few parts from the actual story were not included but other than that, it's great! This is WAY better than the 1997 docudrama film Todesspiel! WATCH THIS if you're interested.

TV movies don't get much better than this. Very well made thriller about a true story, told the way it should be; without exaggerating, without unnecessary melodrama, realistically, with all the right details and no stupid mistakes (even the cigarette brands where authentic for the period), the closest possible to what it was really like.

Most of all, the filmmakers do not worry about being politically correct, they tell a story about a very troublesome period in recent German (and not only) history, worrying only about being true to the story itself! How refreshing! My compliments, very well done!