Opération Thunderbolt : L'Esprit d'Entébbé

Following my recent viewing of Israeli director Moshe' Mizrahi's French movie MADAME ROSA – the 1977 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film – I decided to watch the only remaining contender in that category sooner rather than later. As it turned out, the official Israeli entry was the weakest of the five final selections and I am guessing that its sheer topicality – being based on a very recent hijacking episode that had grabbed world headlines – was what made it jump ahead of other notable competitors among the 24 international Oscar submissions, namely Larisa Shepitko's THE ASCENT, Wim Wenders' THE American FRIEND, Bo Widerberg's THE MAN ON THE ROOF (1976), Paul Verhoeven's SOLDIER OF ORANGE and Krzysztof Zanussi's CAMOUFLAGE.

For the record, my relative disappointment with OPERATION THUNDERBOLT has just been exacerbated by my discovering that I had acquired and watched the U.S. Theatrical Version (culled from a TV screening on the MGM channel) – which has characters mostly speaking their lines in English, barring the occasional lapses into French and German – rather than the original version which has characters (be they Israeli, German, French or African) rightfully speaking in their native tongue...and which is available as a "Full Movie" video on "You Tube" and on a renowned torrent download site! Having said that, craggy-faced chief hijacker Klaus Kinski's equally distinctive voice can be heard in both versions but, apart from his trigger-happy cohort Sybil Danning and nemesis Assaf Dayan (as the Israeli commando second-in-command), he is the only recognizable name in the cast...that is, if one is to discount the personal, silent appearances of the Israeli politicians that faced the crisis in real life, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres; in any case, the acting honours here are stolen by Yehoram Gaon as the ill-fated commando leader Yonatan Netanyahu (who, at one point, is amusingly seen reading Alistair MacLean's "Circus" - a novel I also read myself as a kid). This sharply contrasts with the contemporaneous, star-studded, rival re-enactments of the events for U.S. TV, namely VICTORY AT ENTEBBE (1976; which I had intended watching last year for Burt Lancaster's centenary but had to jettison it due to time constraints) and RAID ON ENTEBBE (1977) – both of which, incidentally, also exist in longer and shorter edits.

While the fact that the viewer is aware from the outset of the narrative's outcome can perhaps lead to the film feeling rather predictable, the presence of a surprisingly restrained Kinski (billed "Kinsky" in the all-English opening credits!) and Danning make up for that; on the other hand, while the final assault on Entebbe airport occurs towards the very end of the film and can thus appear to be a long time coming, the swift depiction of it is quite electrifying (especially the sight of Kinski's twitching body as it expires early on in a hail of machine-gun bullets). Seeing the names of commercial 1980s Hollywood entity Cannon Group founders Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus among the makers of this film somewhat undermine its proposed authenticity (shot with the full co-operation of the Israeli government and Air Force); indeed OPERATION THUNDERBOLT (which, decades afterwards, also became the name of a video game!) succeeds more as an action movie than a psychological or political thriller which might not have been congenial to this particular subject but serves as a veritable template for the later Cannon Group star-studded blockbuster THE DELTA FORCE (1986; also helmed by Golan and easily Chuck Norris' most prestigious star vehicle) complete with overblown rousing music throughout.

This 1977 Oscar nominated film in the category of "Best Foreign Film" is based on the true story of the rescue mission led by a young Israeli Army officer, Jonathan "Yoni" Netanyaho that astounded the world. Yoni's brother, Benjamin Netanyaho would go on to become the Prime Minister of Israel. This film still stands today with the other films about the Entebbe rescue as an inspiration of what can be accomplished when heroic people of honor and determination, the Israel Defense Forces, come face to face with the forces of evil, in this case German and Palestinian terrorists. There is no fluff in this movie, just an honest portrayal of heroism by the innocent civilian hostages, the Air France flight crew and the IDF soldiers, pilots and flight crews. To truly define this film I would like to quote in part a letter from Benjamin Netanyaho which come with each 25th Anniversary DVD. "........The story of Yoni and his comrades in Entebbe sheds light on the other heroes of Israel, known and unsung alike, who through their sacrifice and courage delivered our people time and again from the abyss of disaster, in the wars of Israel as at Entebbe. I can only hope that their great spirit, as captured in this film, will serve to meet the great challenges that still await us."

Accurately historically, keeps the rhythm to the very end. Seems even better than the two other versions of it. I liked it very much. It was a good idea and implementation the usage of real video of Israeli leaders. The film describes the Operation Entebbe, which took place on the night of July 3 and early morning of July 4, 1976. Originally called Operation Thunderbolt by the Israeli military who planned it and carried it out, and it was subsequently renamed Operation Yonatan after the raid commander, Col. Yonatan "Yoni" Netanyahu, the only Israeli soldier to die in the raid. "Yoni" was the brother of the former Israeli primer minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of the Likud party. The Israeli singer and actor Yehoram Gaon played Col. Netanyahu and there is a good acting by the German actor Klaus Kinski as the leader of the terrorist gang. A good war film but more than that a must for those who like films on international affairs.

The movie depicts the true operation to release hostages in Uganda by Israeli commandos. The movie focuses on the leader of the operation - who ends up as the only casualty - very much like a french movie.

The movie uses 4(!) different languages (Hebrew, English, German and Arabic) that lend to the credibility and authenticity of the movie. The plot has good pace and does not let you dose off for a second. The story is "classic" and powerful.

While peace in the middle east seems as far away now as it did in 1949, you gotta hand it to em that they sure can still make a hell of a good movie.

While the actual operation of the 1976 rescue of the 100+ hostages held at Entebbe airport is not probed into as much with this film as with RAID ON ENTEBBE, this is the infinitely more fun one of the two to watch. Dov Seltzer's music is really the star with this film, particularly with the really cool opening theme which plays in many variations whenever Yoni is onscreen and the theme that plays at Entebbe airport whenever it shows the guards standing around, etc. The music works best during Yoni's death scene (this is no spoiler since the events of the film are historically accurate, and pretty well-known too) where it really takes his usual theme but drags it out to sound all tragic. Gotta love the ultra-70's style filming and editing. Lots of zoom-ins and odd use of models, stock footage, and stand-ins which is sometimes cheesy, but always entertaining in some way. It's all pretty standard stuff until the ending battle, which is handled in a very high-octane way as opposed to RAID ON ENTEBBE, where they did a lot of standing around and things tended to work out better (It would be more interesting to know which of the two is more historically accurate).

Klaus Kinski and Sybil Danning are the other stars here. Their problem though is that they are underused. Klaus doesn't act quite crazy enough (though he does a lot of running around and has a really cool death scene), and Sybil Danning's stunning unearthly beauty is not exploited enough, hidden behind poofy hair, bulky dress, and a large pair of sunglasses. One might be angry at watching this and not getting their full Kinski or Danning's-worth, but it's better than not having them here at all.

The authenticity involved in much of the rest of the film is amazing, with Rabin and Peres doing some acting (though they never speak, on-camera and the scenes where people are talking to them look suspiciously like they used doubles) and supposedly 12 of the original hostages returned to reprise their roles in this film. However, it goes out of its way to demonize the PLO, Che Guevaranians, and Idi Amin (though with him that's another story). Everything with the villains is a lot darker and more mean-spirited than in RAID ON ENTEBBE, but it all works to make this film more fun. Just take it as entertainment and not as fact, because of course it was the winners that made this. Just a fun and fast-paced little forgotten movie. Where's the DVD?