Entebbe (2018)

Entebbe (aka 7 Days in Entebbe) is a film that seems confused about its purpose.

Although it’s largely shown from the often-sympathetic perspective of one of the hijackers, Wilfried Böse played by Daniel Brühl, it doesn’t really side with the terrorists. Brühl is shown as a slightly naïve idealist, which is about as deep as his character goes.

The Israeli side of the film largely consists of Yitzhak Rabin (Lior Ashkenazi) and Shimon Peres (Eddie Marsan) debating over how best to secure the release of the hostages. The end title cards suggest that the intent of this is to indicate the importance of establishing a dialogue between Israel and Palestine, but there’s nothing persuasive about any of the onscreen arguments.

There’s also a subplot about the relationship between one of the Israeli commandos and his dancer girlfriend. The subplot appears to be completely detached from the rest of the film, and only seems to serve the purpose of allowing the director to intercut dance sequences into the film’s main action set-piece.

The hostages exist only as brief sketches of the people caught up in this situation. Aside from scared expressions and the bloodied figure of one hostage who is violently interrogated by his captors, there’s little attempt to spend much time with them. For the most part there’s an emotional gulf between their experiences and the audience.

Performances are decent enough with Brühl as the standout part, but overall the film didn’t really work for me.