7 Days in Entebbe

Another gripper of the week, this time based on the 1976 hijack of an Air France airliner by two German revolutionaries and two Palestinian terrorists and a covert rescue operation by Israel when Yitzak Shamir was the Prime Minister and Shimon Perez his Defence Minister.

Besides capturing the era of the 1970s beautifully with all its fine nuances and political movements, the film is a realistic take on the gritty and near impossible rescue operation that Israel conducts 4,000 miles away from its territory, that too at an airport falling in the crazy Ugandan President Idi Amin’s territory.

Not just that, the entire operation gets the Cabinet vote even as Shamir deters against a crackdown, buckles under pressure and agrees to negotiate with the terrorists, going against Israel’s long stated and never breached policy of no-negotiation. That he was later in life assassinated by a radical Zionist for having agreed to negotiate in 1976 showcases Israel’s never give-in culture that persists even five decades later and several assassinations of heads of State who tried to talk about negotiation as a better ploy than constant war with Palestine.

When some German radicals team up with Palestinians to hijack a plane to demand the release of 52 Palestinian prisoners, little did they know that whatever revolutionary thoughts they may have had for an idealistic return of Israel to a less strident State, would go out of the window after they are sidelined and manipulated by the hardcore terrorists who tie up with the megalomaniacal Idi Amin.

Brazilian director Jose Padilha stitches the film together with a lot of verve juxtaposing his gripping story with an equally gripping and intense dance that cuts through the film to enhance the impact of the proceedings

The climactic military operation led by Yonatan Netanyahu (played by Angel Bonanni), whose elder brother Benjamin Netanyahu would later become Prime Minister, is full of unpredictable moments shot on a hyper night camera with white lights flaring up the abandoned airport where the hostages are kept.

The film is frenetic, electric and life itself. Must see! 

Source:  The Pioneer, 18 March, 2018