7 Dias em 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.

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.

In July 1976, an Air France flight from Tel-Aviv to Paris gets hijacked on a stopover in Athens. The leaders of the group are Brigitte Kuhlmann (Rosamund Pike) and book publisher Wilfried Böse (Daniel Brühl). They are German revolutionaries trying to reclaim the initiative after their group faced setbacks at home. They are joined by Palestinians looking for revenge against the Jewish state. They force the plane to fly to Entebbe, Uganda where they have friendly unstable dictator in President Idi Amin. In Israel, defense minister Shimon Peres (Eddie Marsan) pushes for aggressive action while Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is cautious in the face of overwhelming odds.

This true crime thriller is 2/3 great and 1/3 meh. Certainly, the hijacking is compelling and the two Germans are fascinating in their naive radicalism. They are over their heads as they slowly drown in the pool of their own making. Even a minor character like Idi Amin is terrific. The second great thread is the Israeli political leaders. Eddie Marsan is a great actor in a juicy role. The least compelling is the Israeli soldier and his dancer girlfriend Sarah. While her concern is still life and death, it pales in comparison to the other threads. The modern dance show is a disruption in the story flow especially in the climatic action third act. Cutting back and forth between the airport and the modern dance is simply a failed attempt at an artistic flourish. Doing the airport straight would be more intense and more compelling. Also, Netanyahu should probably be the leading soldier character in the movie rather than the kid with his girlfriend. Overall, I really like the 2/3 and the 1/3 doesn't sink it.

'Entebbe' is a film that should have worked and should have been good. It had a very talented cast, it is hard not to go wrong with Daniel Bruhl, Rosamund Pike and Eddie Marsan judging from a lot of their previous work. It also is based on and tells of a remarkable and hard-hitting true story.

While not a terrible film, despite sharing all of many people's complaints of 'Entebbe' it is not as quite as bad to me as some have made out because there are a few plus points, 'Entebbe' should have been much better and that it screwed up in such an underwhelming manner is frustrating. It really does not do this incredible story justice and the cast are all better than this and deserved better. Didn't come out feeling insulted or offended watching 'Entebbe', at the same time the film left me disappointed and frustrated.

There are plus points here. Daniel Bruhl and Rosamund Pike actually fare very well in the lead roles. While Bruhl's as expected thoughtful, gravitas-filled and charismatic performance keeps one glued Pike impressed me more in the more challenging role (including having a German accent, not an easy one to master and one stereotyped very variably a lot, and having apparently to learn German, thought though she was fluent in the language already) and the one that the film tries most to develop.

'Entebbe' starts off intriguingly and there are parts where the production values have slickness and atmosphere. There is one scene that did have emotional impact and did leave me haunted, that was Pike's phone scene.

However, the rest of the cast don't fare so well and it is largely down to the way the characters are written. Eddie Marsan is just bizarre and how Peres is written and characterised felt wrong and out of kilter. Nonso Anozie is nowhere near sinister enough as Amin, the man was a monster and Anozie completely fails to bring that on screen. Ben Schnetzer's role doesn't make sense and felt under-developed. The chemistry between the actors is very disconnected, on the most part this is including between Bruhl and Pike through no fault of their own.

It's not the cast that are to blame here. The one-sided and biased way the roles are written, including trying to humanise the lead characters, making Peres' and Amin's roles one-dimensional and painting the Palestinians in an objectionable light, is more of a problem. Even when trying to tell the events from multiple, even all, view-points which fails to tell one very much and quickly became over-stuffed.

As is the less than taut and rather preachy script, that runs out of steam far too quickly and it constantly feels we are running in circles with nothing new being told and being told the obvious and the same thing more than once. The direction is both pedestrian and gimmicky, often muddled and like not-knowing-what-to-do-with-the-material standard, and too often the production values are drab and dizzying, the slow motion in the final raid was not necessary, trivialised the already too downplayed violence and made me feel uncomfortable. The scene should have been tense but was anything but, feeling too much like an afterthought.

Much has also been made of the use and cross-cutting of modern dancing. This was overused, out of place, gimmicky and not even that well choreographed. It really diluted what little tension there already was and it made it very hard to take the film seriously. Found it very annoying and even disrespectful that 'Entebbe' had this suspense-filled and riveting story and make it dull and devoid of tension and suspense, with what should have been the most prominent and compelling events (the planning of the raid and the raid itself especially) being given short shrift and treated in a far too safe manner. What was more prominent and significantly less interesting was handled turgidly and in a biased fashion. It felt like there was little at stake when there was actually a huge amount.

Overall, a disappointing film that has pluses but also a lot of minuses. The cast and the story deserved better. 4/10 Bethany Cox

A completely good film ruined by intermixing a pathetic dance routine (and the music) into the main assault. What was the director thinking.