Mr. Movie review: ‘7 Days in Entebbe a horrible mess’
In June of 1976 operatives from an organization demanding a free Palestine hijacked an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris. They took the 246 passengers and crew to Entebbe, Uganda, and demanded the Israeli government release imprisoned pro-Palestinian comrades or hostages would die.
Rosamund Pike (“Gone, Girl”) and Daniel Bruhl (“Captain America: Civil War”) star as two of the Germans who set up the hijacking. The rest of the cast — except for famed character actor Eddie Marsen who plays Israeli defense minister Shimon Peres — is unknown.
Pike, Bruhl and the others playing terrorists have very little to do but look menacing and be terrorist-like. Marsan and his Israeli cabinet co-stars and the military expert and soldier co-stars get to be worried and negative that a rescue will work.
That’s about it.
The Israeli raid at the Entebbe is one of the — if not the — most dramatic and creative rescues in history. Israel’s tenacity and trickery made rescue possible. It deserves better storytelling than that of director Jose Padilha and writer Gregory Burke.
Padilla (2014’s “RoboCop”) fails on all counts. “7 Days in Entebbe” has zero drama, zero tension and — worst — zero reason to care.
Movie name: ‘7 Days in Entebbe’
Director: Jose Padilha
Stars: Rosamund Pike, Daniel Bruhl, Eddie Marsan, Angel Bonanni
Mr. Movie rating: 1 star
Rated PG-13 for mature themes and violence. It’s playing at Regal’s Columbia Center 8.
5 stars to 4 1/2 stars: Must see on the big screen.
4 stars to 3 1/2 stars: Good film, see it if it’s your type of movie.
3 stars to 2 1/2 stars: Wait until it comes out on DVD.
2 stars to 1 star: Don’t bother.
0 stars: Speaks for itself.
This story was originally published March 15, 2018 at 2:09 PM with the headline "Mr. Movie review: ‘7 Days in Entebbe a horrible mess’."