Victory at Entebbe

The bargain-basement production values that mark this quickie shoot-em-up, filmed and released literally months after the dramatic Israeli commando raid, would be enough to consign this turkey to the dustbin of TV history. But it gets worse. The audience can play spot-the-star as Hollywood legends Liz Taylor, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Helen Hayes etc., turn in embarrassing cameos. Unintentional hilarity is the only possible response to the scene in which Linda Blair offers a box of chocolates to the flight crew and the terrorists holding them at gunpoint. Mirth gives way to anger, however, when the film depicts unruly hostages being deliberately shot down by Israeli soldiers during the rescue scene! With rescuers like these, who needs hijackers? "Raid on Entebbe," which came out a year later with Charles Bronson, is much the superior account of this operation.

This is a bad movie. The real story of the Entebbe rescue was much more exciting and interesting than this. Everything about the movie, apart from the star-studded cast, screams low-budget. But even the stars can't save this movie: Kirk Douglas and Liz Taylor overact horribly. So does the guy who plays Idi Amin, but I suspect Amin was even worse in real life so I'll cut him some slack. Anthony Hopkins and Richard Dreyfuss perform well, though. The woman who plays the female German terrorist is a caricature of a Nazi. The characterization is paper-thin, though that is perhaps understandable given the number of characters. A lot of the dialogue is awful, a part near the beginning where Linda Blair is having an insipid conversation with her new beaux actually made me laugh out loud. The effort to humanize the male German terrorist was silly and pointless. I haven't seen the other two movies about Entebbe, but don't watch this one. Read a book about it instead.

What I am writing is intended for those considering purchasing this movie on DVD from Warner Archive. Do not mistake this movie for Raid On Entebbe which is a first class film. A first class cast deliver poor performances down to the last man woman and child. Although not annoying there certain scene changes with gaps intended for placement of commercials. a The plot is slow to develop and tends to drag painfully. Filmed in academy aperture on either poor film stock or the print is bad. There are frequent focus errors and audible camera noise. There are numerous technical and historical errors including piston engine sound for the turboprop C-130s. As digitized by Warner Archive has shutter type sound track partially visible to the right of the picture.

It is not surprising that something as utterly dramatic and swift as Israel's lightning raid at Entebbe against a planeload of Palestinian hijackers holding over one hundred of their own should make for a movie. Instead, however, there were three, of which this is the first.

This made-for-TV movie, which somehow bought together an all-star cast and was shot, edited, and aired within a mere five months of the Entebbe event, which happened under cover of darkness on July 4, 1976, shows some of the faults of being shot largely in a studio and on videotape (later transferred to film). But what we get, thanks to veteran TV director Marvin Chomsky and writer Ernest Kinoy, is a rather good account of perhaps the most dramatic anti-terrorist raid the world has ever seen. Burt Lancaster and Anthony Hopkins are matchless as Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, with Richard Dreyfuss contribuing his usual best as Colonel Yonni Netanyahu, the only casualty the Israeli military suffered during the raid.

The cast also includes Kirk Douglas, Linda Blair, Elizabeth Taylor, Helen Hayes, Christian Marquand (as the Air France pilot), and Harris Yulin, among others. The only performance that seems full of ham to me is Julius Harris' as the ultra-notorious Ugandan president Idi Amin; it is so over the top (though perhaps that is a bit harsh, as the real Amin was far, far worse).

This is a somewhat imperfect version of the story, but nevertheless worth the 7-out-of-10 rating it gets from me.

If one is a history buff and enjoys reading about and viewing films made about historic events then they will read and view everything they can find on the subject. This film is an account of the Israeli commando rescue of Jewish hostages who were hi-jacked in July of 1976 and flown to Idi Amins Uganda. While this film which boasted an all star cast is clearly inferior to the one which came out a year later and starred Peter Finch and Charles Bronson it still makes for good viewing. It also makes one wonder with the talented cast had more time and perhaps more money been spent on making this version it might have been the best of the lot.