Subplots hijack otherwise good movie
Director’s meandering narrative seems to spend time on wrong things
The story of the hijacking of an Air France aircraft in 1976 and the subsequent rescue of its Israeli hostages has been told four times on screen.
The first three, a pair of TV movies and the Israeli film Operation Thunderbolt, were ripped from the headlines, appearing just months after the events. The latest, 7 Days in Entebbe, is ripped from the history books.
It’s an adequate if undistinguished retelling by José Padilha, the Brazilian director whose career began with the 2002 documentary Bus 174, about a more grounded hijacking. And in this era of terrorist bombings, the pace of the drama seems almost languid; after the Tel Aviv-to-Paris flight was commandeered in Athens and flown to Entebbe, Uganda, the kidnappers and their hostages spent a week in an abandoned terminal as demands were made to the Israeli government.
The screenplay by Gregory Burke is most interested in the two German hijackers, played by Rosamund Pike and Daniel Brühl. The other two were members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners, but the Germans seem to have become involved out of a combination of left-wing solidarity and lack of anything better to do. Only well into the operation does it occur to them that the optics of German hijackers threatening Jewish hostages is very bad indeed.
The story bounces back and forth between Entebbe and the Israeli cabinet, with Lior Ashkenazi and Eddie Marsan excellent as prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and defence minister Shimon Peres, arguing over the best course of action.
We also get to know the Air France flight engineer, played by Denis Ménochet, whose fearless questioning leads Brühl to open up — and, it’s suggested, may have played a role in how the rescue played out.
But the sprawling narrative, including a misguided, metaphorical subplot of an Israeli dance troupe, leaves little room to learn more about the rest of the Air France crew or even the hostages.
The Entebbe affair was a complicated one, with commentators debating Israeli’s right to intervene. Add the image of Uganda’s unbalanced president Idi Amin (Nonso Anozie) not only supporting the Palestinian cause but showing up at the airport to personally welcome the hostages to Africa. Padilha captures some of this weirdness, but his meandering narrative never seems certain where to focus.
It’s entirely possible to reduce seven days to less than two hours, but you need to know which seconds count.