7 Days in Entebbe

Director: José Padilha José Padilha

Overview

In 1976, an Air France flight out of Israel is hijacked by Palestinian and German terrorists led by Wilfried (Daniel Brühl) and Brigitte (Rosamund Pike). The plane is forced to land in Entebbe, Uganda, where the Jewish passengers are held hostage. Instead of giving in to the hijackers' demands to release Palestinian prisoners, the Israeli government sends in a commando team for a rescue mission. Eddie Marsan co-stars. Directed by José Padilha. Based on true events. ~ Kaitlin Elise Miller

Product Details

Release Date:	07/03/2018
UPC:	0191329063446
Original Release:	2018
Rating:	PG-13
Source:	Universal Studios
Time:	1:47:00
Sales rank:	34,370

Special Features

The Entebbe Team Inside the Raid

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Rosamund Pike	Brigitte Kuhlmann
Daniel Brühl	Wilfried Böse
Eddie Marsan	Shimon Peres
Ben Schnetzer	Zeev Hirsch
Lior Ashkenazi	Yitzhak Rabin
Denis Menochet	Jacques Le Moine
Nonso Anozie	Idi Amin
Peter Sullivan	Amos Eiran
Angel Bonanni	Yonatan Netanyahu
Mark Ivanir	General Motta Gur
Kamil Lemieszewski	Greek Pilot
Brontis Jodorowsky	Captain Bacos
Natalie Stone	Leah Rabin
Andrea Deck	Patricia Martel
Flynn Allen	Ariel Levy
Laurel Lefkow	Ida Borowitz
Daniel Ben Zenou	Actor
David Annen	Military Attache
Vincent Riotta	Dan Shomrom
Noof McEwan	Al Arja

Technical Credits

Gregory Burke

José Padilha	Director
Rodrigo Amarante	Score Composer
Tim Bevan	Producer
Gregory Burke	Screenwriter
Jo Burn	Executive Producer
Chantal Busuttil	Makeup
Lula Carvalho	Cinematographer
Liza Chasin	Executive Producer
Olivier Courson	Executive Producer
Bina Daigeler	Costumes/Costume Designer
Charlo Dalli	Art Director
Jean-Claude Darmon	Executive Producer
Eric Fellner	Producer
Richard Graysmark	Asst. Director
Karen Schembri Grima	Makeup
Ron Halpern	Producer
Jonathan King	Executive Producer
Angela Morrison	Executive Producer
Kave Quinn	Production Designer
Daniel Rezende	Editor
Jeff Skoll	Executive Producer
Kate Solomon	Producer
Fiona Weir	Casting
Michelle Wright	Producer

Editorial Reviews

As hostage-rescue missions go, Operation Thunderbolt was a doozy. Thunderbolt was the Israeli response to the hijacking of Air France flight 139, which occurred while the plane was stopped over in Athens en route to Paris from Tel Aviv. Two radical leftist Germans and two militant Palestinians used guns and grenades to convince the captain to divert to Benghazi and then to Entebbe in Uganda, where they had secured asylum from dictator Idi Amin. (Cinema buffs can turn to The Last King of Scotland for more on Amin, where he's played by Forest Whitaker in an Oscar-winning performance.) After six days of stalling and internal debate, Israel flew 100 commandos to Uganda and rescued the hostages with a daring raid on the airport; the operation saved all but three of the remaining 106 hostages, although it ultimately left 56 people dead -- most of them Ugandan soldiers. 7 Days in Entebbe dramatizes these events and attempts to show the hijacking and rescue from every perspective. Director José Padilha succeeds in not favoring any one side of the crisis -- which is to say, this is not a political film. This objectivity and fairness, though, lend it a sterile feel and contribute to its languid pace. The raid itself is barely shown; instead, most of the movie's energy is devoted to the debate between Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (Lior Ashkenazi) and Defense Minister Shimon Peres (Eddie Marsan). Rabin essentially favored working with the hijackers to secure the hostages, while Peres felt that Israel should maintain its policy of not negotiating with terrorists. The dynamic between the two is exacerbated by domestic political considerations, and the tension between them is what drives the film. Unfortunately, this conflict doesn't really have enough power to sustain the plot, a fact that further slows the movie's pace. For a superior example of how to make a story like this compelling on film, see the 2017 picture 6 Days, which is about the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege in London. One of the strengths of 7 Days is its bevy of excellent performances. The most gratifying one is from Rosamund Pike, best known for co-starring in Jack Reacher and Gone Girl, in the role of German hijacker Brigitte Kuhlmann. Pike plays Kuhlmann as strident and militant, yet still unsure of the righteousness of her cause. The role seems a stretch for Pike at first, but she rises to the occasion opposite her equally impressive colleague, Daniel Brühl, who plays Kuhlmann's German partner in the hijacking, Wilfried Böse. There's some fine support work as well, including a performance by Denis Ménochet (Inglourious Basterds) as an Air France flight engineer. The events themselves will be fascinating to most people for any number of reasons, and those events are very well portrayed in 7 Days. The film does a great job of showing that people on both sides of a conflict are still ultimately human beings, too. Those who despair that Hollywood doesn't make enough movies for grown-ups will be pleased by 7 Days in Entebbe.

All Movie Guide - Steve Wilson