Micah Lloyd
Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.
toaddie49-255-239544
Movies are starting to let go of the media manipulations of political motivation, while yes this movie did have the awkward dance routines the rest of the story attempted to look at how the event looked like from the perspective of the people like many in the world today that are tired of political oppression and liesI would like to point out a movie mistake though, when she called home on the payphone the international code she entered at the beginning of dialing would have put her through to Afghanistan, intentional or coincidental oversight?
pal5017-1
First, it's boring. The hijacking happens in the first five or so minutes of the movie, and the rescue happens in the last twenty. In the eighty or so minutes in between, very little happens. One hostage gets beat up, but that's mostly off camera, and there's about two minutes of interesting banter between the lead hijacker and the flight engineer, but that's it. I can't even count how many times I checked the time just to see how far we were from the climax.Second, the character development of the hostages is almost non-existent. Let's see...you have the guy who gets beat up because the hijackers think he's a spy. You have a guy who rips off a Star of David necklace and pockets it at the outset. You have an old woman who gets confused about where she is and starts freaking out. You have a couple who get outraged when Idi Amin threatens their children. You have a pilot who orders his crew to stay until all hostages are released, and the flight stewardess who cries because of it. You have a flight engineer who thinks engineers are more important than revolutionaries. You have a woman who lies about being pregnant to be released early, and takes with her a tiny amount of intelligence about the situation. You have a nun who didn't want to leave the hostages but was forced to any way. I literally described ALL character development of the hostages right there. If any of these situations sound interesting, are they ever followed up on? For instance, did the hijackers freak out when they found the necklace in that guy's pocket? Was there a suspenseful scene where Amin was about to follow through on his threats against those children but they were saved in the nick of time? Nope, and nope. The most follow up that we get is that the flight engineer makes a face at the lead hijacker as he's about to massacre them, causing a moment of hesitation, which allows the IDF baddies to storm in and stop it. I'm not joking or exaggerating.Third, while the rescue was successful on the whole, is there any attention paid to the innocents who perished? Nope. Jean-Jacques Mimouni stood up during the raid and was killed by IDF who thought he was a hijacker, but was that shown? Nope. Dora Bloch went to the hospital and was left behind when the rescue occurred, so Amin had her murdered. Was this shown? Nope. These two, and two others get no more than a caption at the end saying they died- nothing about how. They do show the death of Yoni Netanyahu, but it's really glossed over. And instead of developing him as a character, and showing how he balanced his work and love life in his final days, they focus on some fictional IDF dude and his dancing girlfriend (not going to mention the stupid overlay of a dance sesh during the climactic scene). I actually thought that fictional dude was Yoni until close to the end of the film.Fourth, decades ago, people were warning that Amin got off easy because western media portrayed him as an oafish buffoon and a clown, instead of as the dangerous, murderous lunatic that he was. He fed people to crocodiles, ate several himself, invaded his neighboring countries, and exiled entire groups of people based on dreams, but in this movie, he smilingly explains to his guests all of his titles and how awesome he is. He also comforts a nun as he forces her onto a bus to leave Entebbe. He says some children will be killed, but that's as evil as his portrayal gets.Fifth, people are correct to say this film is pro-Palestinian because much of the bland fluff between the opening and the climax consists of the ethical dilemmas of the hijackers, particularly the two Germans. How does it look for Germans to possibly kill Jews? This is mentioned time and time again. Kuhlmann, the female German, is upset that her idol died in a German jail, and she struggles with this throughout the movie. Whatever. Honestly, even the Palestinians are mostly just faceless baddies. Take whatever viewpoint on that conflict that you want, but this doesn't make an interesting or watchable film.I'm done now. This is about all I can take of talking about this stupid movie.
alan-rudo
The story of the hijacking and subsequent rescue mission was good enough on it's own. The character of Sarah and Batsheva Dance Company's performance distracted from the plot. Even the few IDF members, including Sarah's boyfriend, felt thrown in. The inter-cutting of the rescue and dance sequences were dizzying and distracting. This film is a great example of why less is more.
