7 Days in Entebbe – Entebbe (2018)

Directed by: Jose Padilha | 103 minutes | crime, drama | Actors: Rosamund Pike, Daniel Brühl, Eddie Marsan, Lior Ashkenazi, Nonso Anozie, Ingrid Craigie, Gabriel Constantin, Andrea Deck, Peter Sullivan, Laurence Bouvard, Pierre Boulanger, Samy Seghir, Denis Ménochet, Zina Zinchenko, Ben Schnetzer, Amir Khoury, Ala Dakka, Paloma Coquant, Trudy Weiss

In 1976, an Air France flight carrying 248 mostly Israeli passengers was hijacked by Palestinian and German hostage takers. After days of hostage-taking in Entebbe, Uganda, the hostages were freed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in what is known as ‘Operation Entebbe’. The film ‘7 Days in Entebbe’, by director Jose Padilha (‘Tropa de elite’), tells the story of the hostage-taking and the motives of the German hostage-takers.

In ‘7 Days in Entebbe’ we follow the German left-wing extremists Brigitte Kuhlmann and Wilfred Böse, who, together with two Palestinians, plan the hijacking of a flight between Tel Aviv and Paris. The demand: to free Palestinian prisoners in Israel and other countries. The hijacking succeeds, after which the plane lands in Entebbe. What follows is a long stalemate between the hijackers – backed by Ugandan dictator Idi Amin – and the Israeli authorities, who are plotting an intervention.

‘7 Days in Entebbe’ pays a lot of attention to the motives of Kuhlmann and Böse – how come two wealthy twenty-somethings commit such an extreme act, in the name of a conflict that isn’t even their own? Rosamund Pike (“Die Another Day”, “Gone Girl”) and Daniel Brühl (“Goodbye Lenin”, “Rush”, “Captain America: Civil War”) portray them as straightforward idealists, committed to the Palestinian cause . They also oppose the actual killing of the passengers, which leads to friction with the Palestinian co-hijackers (“Do you get what this means? Germans killing Jews?”). Because of this, the film has received quite a bit of criticism: for example, the actions of Kuhlmann and Böse are excused. The question is, however, what makes a better, more interesting film: one-dimensional villains, or layered characters that the viewer can understand.

The appearance of Idi Amin, played wonderfully by Nonso Anozie (‘Game of Thrones’), feels like a strange interlude in the story. It fits with the history, but is not very well processed from a technical point of view. And despite Anozie’s good playing, this version of Amin can’t compete with Forest Whitaker’s brilliant portrayal in ‘The Last King of Scotland’. In addition, we also see the deliberations of the Israeli government, with Eddie Marsan (“Happy-Go-Lucky”) as Defense Minister Shimon Peres and Israeli actor Lior Ashkenazi as Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. These scenes feel uninspired and are full of obligatory political and strategic discussions like we’ve seen in so many movies. As a result, they add little, except that of course a lot of criticism has arisen on the political charge of these scenes (is Padilha too critical of the actions of the Israeli government, or not critical enough?).

Historical events and true stories are often fodder for Oscar material, but many films fall into the docudrama trap: instead of a compelling story, it becomes a boring enumeration of events, because the story is limited by historical facts. ‘7 Days in Entebbe’ falls somewhere in between. The film is an exciting portrait of the hijacking and hostage-taking, but occasionally loses itself in ticking off points from the historical course of the hijacking, losing sight of the emotional charge. Nevertheless, it is a must for lovers of true stories.