Dorathen Better Late Then Never

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Sabah Hensley This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Leofwine_draca One of three movies that were rushed out in the wake of the 1976 terrorist hijacking, this television film is considered by many who saw it at the time to be the best of the bunch. It's certainly a well-made film, with plenty of authenticity and some very good turns from an excellent ensemble cast. Yet I couldn't help wishing that this film had a little more 'oomph', a little more excitement to propel it along. It's a very dry film that's filled with talky dialogue throughout and the last-reel gung ho antics come too little, too late for my liking. While this may well be because the film is based on a real-life incident and therefore things have to be portrayed as they really happened, in comparison to the recent edge-of-your-seat UNITED 93 you can really see the difference.Most of the fun comes from playing 'spot the cast member' as there are many heavyweights popping up in various roles. Peter Finch, Robert Loggia, Jack Warden, and Eddie Constantine are all fairly interchangeable in desk-bound official turns, and it's left to the on-the-ground guys to give the best acting jobs. Charles Bronson and John Saxon lend some brief, decent military toughness to the proceedings while Horst Buchholz is very convincing as the sweaty, nervous terrorist leader. Watch out for an early turn from James Woods who is very good as an Israeli soldier, and little old lady Sylvia Sidney playing to type as a sweet little old dame.For my part, the film had two excellent and very different performances which made things worth watching. The first comes from Martin Balsam, playing a hostage; this guy can do no wrong, and he's very understated here, and great with it. Using just his eyes for the most part he conveys a ton of emotion and shows up the other actors around him. Finally there's Yaphet Kotto in his scene-stealing turn as Ugandan President and all-round cannibal Idi Amin; this is a great role for any actor and Kotto is superb at conveying the psychopath's mood and mannerisms. While the film is a little dark in terms of lighting and the sets sometimes don't convince, the level of technical detail is good and the story is always interesting. It may not be a classic but it is a decent little hostage thriller and worth seeking out for fans of the genre or the actors involved.

venkatb83 i have heard about the famous entebbe hijack incident many times, and i was curious whether Hollywood made any films on that subject and when am searching for it in net i found 2 films and that link lead to me here 1.Raid on Entebbe (1976) 2.opertaiom thunder bolt-raid on entebbe..i have watched first one (Charles Bronson) and loved it.....they made film very well-and some what authentically... starting to finish its thrilling-entertaining film.....Charles Bronson's best acting(i wasn't aware of him-until i watched his mechanic-which remade same name n lead of cinema As Jason sthatham)and this is 2nd film of him i watched...2 actors who's role as junior and senior idi amin make us laugh-make serious films tense moments quite fun..!!! idi amin's fun side-seriousness can be seen in his conversation with foreign friend who pressurize him to arrest terrorists,and while he talking with hostages...!!best film...go watch and witness the successful rescue mission of hostages un hurt...it deserves more but not possible so 10/10

bkoganbing For eight days in Israel everyone held their breath as Palestinian terrorists captured an Air France jet bound for Tel Aviv and added a new twist to hostage negotiation. No taking an El-Al flight which would have involved the Israelis directly, no taking it to an Arab country where the issue might have been joined. This time a foreign airliner that happened to be going to Israel with about 100 of its citizens returning from abroad. And where do they take it, but Entebbe capital of Uganda and ruled by a certified psycho.In his farewell performance Peter Finch leads an impressive cast as Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin who has to make a crucial decision as to response to the terrorists and has 8 days to do it. That's the deadline that the terrorists have placed with their demands on several European countries and Israel to release the Palestinian 'freedom fighters' from various prisons.A solid cast of players are giving some great performances in Raid On Entebbe. Most singled out is Yaphett Kotto as Idi Amin, Uganda's strutting dictator who was relishing the spotlight on himself on the world stage. I could also single out Charles Bronson as General Dan Sharon who led the ground troops in the rescue and in a very small role James Woods who is a reservist called up to serve on the rescue. His scene of farewell with his family is very touching.The only casualty among the passengers is Sylvia Sidney who took ill during the crisis and apparently had the effrontery to question the intentions of Idi Amin. Like Woods represents a young generation of Jews, Sylvia Sidney as Dora Bloch was the Holocaust generation who in her last hours was not allowed to die without terror. No one knows what happened to Dora Bloch after she was taken to the Ugandan hospital, but there is all kinds of speculation about the only really unanswered part of the Entebbe story.As for Rabin he met his own martyrdom in the Nineties by a fanatic Jewish terrorist who thought the man who rescued the Israelis in Entebbe wasn't doing enough to push perpetual war on the Arabs. And the man who played him died five days after this film was aired on television and got a posthumous Emmy nomination. That went with Peter Finch's posthumous Oscar for Network. Emmy nominations also went to Yaphett Kotto and Martin Balsam who played the passenger spokesperson.One of the best made for television films Raid On Entebbe should not be missed.

Pratik Jasani I remember this very well because it was in the mid 1970's, while I was a child and lived in Nairobi, that one night I went to the Airport, which at that time was Embakassi Airport, which is situated to the now new Airport, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, with my parents to drop off one of our family members. At that time they had a terminal, a waving base on which the members of the public could go and sit and watch the passengers board aircraft as well as watch aircrafts land and take off. After about 11.00pm, while waiting and sitting around, I noticed a change in the area where the aircrafts were parked and taking in passengers as well as letting them off. No aircrafts were either taking off or landing and that there were several vehicles preparing and heading towards the end of the runway. Suddenly there was loud noise and they were not those of civilian aircrafts and the noise was deafening as a few, what seemed to be Hercules type planes, landed and soon came to a halt at the end of the runway. But only one came near the passenger terminal and was met by an ambulance. An hour later, they took off into the darkness. The markings could not be read.The next day, it was on all the news papers that there had been a "Raid At Entebee Airport" by Israeli Commandos to free the passengers that had been held as hostages from an Civilian aircraft that had been high jacked weeks before and landed in the Ugandan capital I, then had the opportunity to watch this excellent movie on the TV, and starred one of my old time favourite action actors, Charles Bronson, as one of the Commandos.The movie is still worthwhile watching and if at all possible, one should try to read the book, "Operation Thunderbolt," which was the code name for this.