7 Dias em Entebbe

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.

Most of us (including me), when we heard about the new film 7 DAYS IN ENTEBBE, thought to themselves "didn't they just make this film a few years ago...?" The answer is yes. A similar film to this - RAID ON ENTEBBE - was a TV movie made a few years ago - 42 years ago, to be precise. It starred Peter Finch, Martin Balsam, Jack Warden and good ol' Charles Bronson. Made a mere few months after the true events, this slapped together movie was an old-fashioned "shoot 'em up."

This film is most definitely not.

7 DAYS IN ENTEBBE tells the true story of the 1976 Air France Hijacking of (mostly) Israeli citizens that settle in Entebbe, Uganda (under the leadership of crazed dictator Idi Amin) - refusing to negotiate with terrorists, the Israeli government plan, stage and execute a daring rescue mission.

Sounds like a pretty good plot for a Charles Bronson shoot-em-up.

In this version, Director Jose Padilha (the 2014 remake of ROBOCOP) decides to focus most of his attention not on the hijacked Israeli citizens, but rather, a pair of German hijackers juxtaposed against the political infighting in Israel between Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Defense Minister Shimon Peres. The Israeli governmental infighting was interesting to watch with intriguing characters and cat-and-mouse back-stabbing politics while the plight of the kidnappers was underwritten and underwhelming. Consequently, this film was "just okay".

Oh...and it had about an hour-fifteen minutes of content stretched over an hour-forty-five minutes, so to stretch things out, Padilha decided to cut back and forth between the action (what there was of it) and a modern dance recital. Clearly he was trying a metaphor of the dance punctuating the emotions and actions elsewhere. It just didn't work for me.

Neither did this film. Skip this one and check out the Charles Bronson shoot-em-up.

Letter Grade C+

5 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis)

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.

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