''Entebbe'' (titled ''7 Days in Entebbe'' in the U.S.) is a 2018

action Action may refer to: * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video game Film * Action film, a genre of film * ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford * ''Action'' (1980 fil ...

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...

directed by

José Padilha José Bastos Padilha Neto (; born 1 August 1967) is a Brazilian film director, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for directing the Brazilian critical and financial successes '' Elite Squad'' and '' Elite Squad: The Enemy Within'' a ...

and written by Gregory Burke. The film recounts the story of

Operation Entebbe Operation Entebbe, also known as the Entebbe Raid or Operation Thunderbolt, was a counter-terrorist hostage-rescue mission carried out by commandos of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on 4 July 1976. A week ear ...

, a 1976 counter-terrorist hostage-rescue operation. The film stars

Rosamund Pike Rosamund Mary Ellen Pike (born 1979) is a British actress. She began her acting career by appearing in stage productions such as ''Romeo and Juliet'' and ''Gas Light''. After her screen debut in the television film ''A Rather English Marriage'' ...

and

Daniel Brühl Daniel César Martín Brühl González Domingo (; born 16 June 1978) is a Spanish-German actor and filmmaker. He received his first German Film Award for Best Actor for his roles in '' Das Weisse Rauschen (The White Sound)'' (2001), ''Nichts ...

. It was released in the United States on 16 March 2018 and in the United Kingdom on 11 May 2018.

Plot

On 27 June 1976,

Wilfried Böse Wilfried Bonifatius "Boni" Böse (7 February 1949, – 4 July 1976) was a founding member of the German organization Revolutionary Cells that was described in the early 1980s as one of Germany's most dangerous leftist terrorist groups by the ...

and

Brigitte Kuhlmann Brigitte Kuhlmann (1947–1976) was a founding member of the West German left-wing terrorist group '' Revolutionäre Zellen'' (RZ, or Revolutionary Cells in English). She was killed by the Israel Defense Forces in Entebbe, Uganda, during Operation ...

, two terrorists belonging to the Revolutionary Cells, an ultra-leftist terrorist organization, hijack

Air France Flight 139 Operation Entebbe, also known as the Entebbe Raid or Operation Thunderbolt, was a counter-terrorist hostage-rescue mission carried out by commandos of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on 4 July 1976. A week ear ...

, flying from

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, during the flight's initial stopover at

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

. Elsewhere, Israeli

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

Yitzhak Rabin Yitzhak Rabin (; he, יִצְחָק רַבִּין, ; 1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77, and from 1992 until h ...

and

defense minister A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in s ...

Shimon Peres are alerted of the hijacking. During a refueling stop in Benghazi, Böse releases a female passenger who, unbeknownst to the terrorists, had pretended to suffer a miscarriage. After taking off once more, the hijackers commandeer the plane to

Entebbe Entebbe is a city in Central Uganda. Located on a Lake Victoria peninsula, approximately southwest of the Ugandan capital city, Kampala. Entebbe was once the seat of government for the Protectorate of Uganda prior to independence, in 1962. T ...

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...

on 28 June, where they unite with several terrorists from the

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine ( ar, الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين, translit=al-Jabhah al-Sha`biyyah li-Taḥrīr Filasṭīn, PFLP) is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist and revolutionary so ...

; the two groups had jointly orchestrated the hijacking. The next morning, the passengers are escorted by the terrorists to a dilapidated terminal, where they are greeted by Ugandan dictator

Idi Amin Idi Amin Dada Oumee (, ; 16 August 2003) was a Ugandan military officer and politician who served as the third president of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. He ruled as a military dictator and is considered one of the most brutal despots in modern w ...

, who is in league with the hijackers. Concurrently, Rabin orders Peres and Gen. Motta Gur, the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), to sketch a military operation aimed at rescuing the hostages. Peres suggests invading the airport, but Rabin and Gur reject it. Concurrently, the terrorists begin to segregate Israeli and non-Israeli hostages, much to Böse's fury; he compares the segregation of the hostages to the Nazi-enforced

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. Meanwhile, Rabin begins negotiations with Amin, much to the detestations of Peres, who supports a military option. On 30 June, the hijackers release 48 non-Israeli hostages, while keeping the Israeli hostages incarcerated. Concurrently, Rabin, cornered by escalating diplomatic pressure, finally concedes to initiate negotiations with the hijackers on 1 July. Consequently, the hijackers postpone the deadline of their negotiations to 4 July. Regardless of the developments, the IDF initiates preparations for a rescue mission, consisting of the

Sayeret Matkal General Staff Reconnaissance Unit (formerly Unit 269 or Unit 262), more commonly known as Sayeret Matkal ( he, סיירת מטכ״ל) is the special reconnaissance unit (''sayeret'') of Israel's General Staff (''matkal''). It is the prime special ...

elite commando unit, headed by Lt. Col.

Yoni Netanyahu Yonatan "Yoni" Netanyahu ( he, יונתן נתניהו; March 13, 1946 – July 4, 1976) was an American-born Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officer who commanded the elite commando unit Sayeret Matkal during Operation Entebbe, an operation to resc ...

. Despite favoring a diplomatic approach towards the crisis, Rabin reluctantly supports the operation. On 3 July, with the preparations for the rescue mission - codenamed Operation Thunderbolt, finalized, Rabin convenes the Israeli cabinet for a vote regarding the status of the operation; the cabinet unanimously votes to proceed with the mission, with full endorsement from Gur. The strike force, having already departed for Uganda, is authorized to proceed with the mission. That night, four Israeli

C-130 The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is an American four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed Corporation, Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin). Capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 ...

transport aircraft carrying the strike force land discreetly at Entebbe. Almost immediately, and as an approach to maintain the element of surprise, the unit approaches the terminal in a black Mercedes limo disguised as Amin's state vehicle. However, one of the operatives prematurely opens fire, alerting the hijackers and Ugandan security personnel. The operatives storm the building, engaging both the terrorists and Ugandan soldiers. In the ensuing melee, Böse, Kuhlmann and Yoni are killed, along with the remaining terrorists and several Ugandan soldiers. With the airport secure, the strike force evacuates 102 hostages from Uganda. Elsewhere, Peres congratulates Rabin on the success of the operation; the latter solemnly retorts that ensuring peace is the only way towards preventing further incidents between Israelis and Palestinians. The film's ending displays archival footage of the survivors' return to Israel, with brief notes about the fates of Rabin, Peres, Yoni and the aftermath of the operation.

Cast

Eddie Marsan Edward Maurice Charles Marsan (born 9 June 1968) is an English actor. He won the London Film Critics Circle Award and the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film '' Happy-Go-Lucky'' (2008). He has feature ...

as Shimon Peres *

Lior Ashkenazi Lior Ashkenazi ( he, ליאור אשכנזי; born 28 December 1968) is an Israeli actor, voice actor, comedian and television presenter. Biography Lior Ashkenazi was born in Ramat Gan, Israel, and grew up in the Neveh Yehoshua neighborhood. His ...

Denis Ménochet Denis Ménochet (born 18 September 1976) is a French actor. Ménochet is known to international audiences for his role as Perrier LaPadite, a French dairy farmer interrogated by the Nazis for harboring Jews in the 2009 Quentin Tarantino film ''I ...

as Jacques Le Moine * Ben Schnetzer as Zeev Hirsch * Angel Bonanni as

Yonatan Netanyahu Yonatan "Yoni" Netanyahu ( he, יונתן נתניהו; March 13, 1946 – July 4, 1976) was an American-born Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officer who commanded the elite commando unit Sayeret Matkal during Operation Entebbe, an operation to resc ...

Nonso Anozie Nonso Anozie (; born 17 November 1978) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Tank in '' RocknRolla'', Sergeant Dap in ''Ender's Game'', Abraham Kenyatta in ''Zoo'', Captain of the Guards in ''Cinderella'', Xaro Xhoan Daxos in t ...

Juan Pablo Raba Juan Pablo Raba Vidal (born 14 January 1977) is a Colombian film, TV and telenovela actor, best known internationally for his role as Gustavo Gaviria in the 2015 Netflix series '' Narcos''. Early life Raba was born in Bogotá, Colombia wher ...

as Juan Pablo *

Omar Berdouni Omar Berdouni (born 20 July 1979) is a Moroccan actor. He has starred in a number of feature films including '' The Hamburg Cell'', '' United 93'', "The Situation", '' The Kingdom'' and ''Extraordinary Rendition'', directed by Jim Threapleton ...

as Faiz Jaber *

Mark Ivanir Mark Alexandrovich Ivanir ( he, מארק איווניר; uk, Марк Олександрович Іванір; russian: Марк Александрович Иванир) is a Ukrainian-born Israeli actor known for his character roles on America ...

as Motta Gur * Peter Sullivan as Amos Eiran * Zina Zinchenko as Sarah Mayes *

Andrea Deck Andrea Deck (born February 5, 1994) is an American film, television and theater actress. She trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She is best known for her voice role as Amanda Ripley, daughter of Ellen Ripley, in '' Alien: I ...

as Patricia Martel * Brontis Jodorowsky as Captain Michel Bacos *

Vincent Riotta Vincenzo Ricotta (born 14 October 1959), professionally known as Vincent Riotta, is a British actor. Career Riotta studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He went on to perform in various stage plays, such as Shakespeare's ''Romeo'', wh ...

Dan Shomron Lieutenant General Daniel Shomron (Hebrew: דן שומרון) (August 5, 1937 – February 26, 2008) was the 13th Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), from 1987 to 1991. Biography Shomron was the eldest of three children of To ...

* Yiftach Klein as Ehud Barak * Natalie Stone as

Leah Rabin Leah Rabin ( he, לאה רבין, née Schloßberg; 8 April 1928 – 12 November 2000) was the wife of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995. Biography Leah Rabin was born Leah Schloßberg in Königsberg, East Pruss ...

* Trudy Weiss as Dora Bloch *

Michael Lewis Michael Monroe Lewis (born October 15, 1960) Gale Biography In Context. is an American author and financial journalist. He has also been a contributing editor to ''Vanity Fair'' since 2009, writing mostly on business, finance, and economics. He ...

as Major Muki Betser * Tomer Kapon as soldier

Production

On 11 February 2016, it was announced that

would next direct ''Entebbe'' for

Working Title Films Working Title Films is a British film studio that produces motion pictures and television programs and is a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a division of Comcast. The company was founded by Tim Be ...

and

StudioCanal StudioCanal S.A.S. (formerly known as Le Studio Canal+, Canal Plus, Canal+ Distribution, Canal+ D.A., Canal+ Production, and Canal+ Image and also known as StudioCanal International) is a French film production and distribution company that owns ...

, from a script by Gregory Burke. On 29 July 2016,

and

Vincent Cassel Vincent Cassel (; ; born 23 November 1966) is a French actor. He first achieved recognition for his performance as a troubled French Jewish youth in Mathieu Kassovitz's 1995 film '' La Haine (Hate)'', for which he received two César Award ...

joined to play the lead roles in the film, with Cassel ultimately not participating.

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as a ...

on the film began on 14 November 2016 in Malta, and production also took place in the U.K. During filming, a plane landed at

Malta International Airport Malta International Airport ( mt, L-Ajruport Internazzjonali ta' Malta, ) is the only airport in Malta and it serves the whole of the Maltese Islands. It is located on the island of Malta, southwest of the Maltese capital Valletta, in the town ...

as a result of a real hijacking and scenes of passengers exiting after negotiations had succeeded were used in the movie. The film features extensive footage of the noted Batsheva Dance Company, dancing to a modern version of the traditional Jewish song '' Echad Mi Yodea''. One of the characters in the film is a dancer in the troupe, and the dance is shown as the film opens and then throughout the film, intercut with portions of the narrative.

Release

The film premiered on 19 February 2018 at the

68th Berlin International Film Festival The 68th annual Berlin International Film Festival took place from 15 to 25 February 2018. German filmmaker Tom Tykwer served as Jury President. American film director Wes Anderson's animated film '' Isle of Dogs'' opened the festival, becoming ...

. It was released in the United States on 16 March 2018, and received a release in the United Kingdom on 11 May 2018.

Promotion

An initial trailer for ''Entebbe'' was released on 7 December 2017, using the 1971 song " I'd Love to Change the World" by the band

Ten Years After Ten Years After are a British rock group, most popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Between 1968 and 1973, the band had eight consecutive Top 40 albums on the UK Albums Chart. In addition, they had twelve albums enter the US ''Billboar ...

Reception

Critical reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an

approval rating An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll (although strictly a poll is an actual election) is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions ...

of based on reviews, and an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, "''7 Days in Entebbe'' has a worthy story to tell, but loses sight of its most compelling elements in a dull dramatization of riveting real-life events." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

score of 49 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". David Ehrlich of

IndieWire IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Holl ...

gave the film a "C" and called it competent but pointless, saying: "When all the dust settles, we’re left right where we started, and with nothing to show for it but a fleeting reminder that peace is impossible without negotiation. It’s a lesson that history has failed to teach us, filtered through a movie that doesn’t understand why." The ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago ...

''s

Richard Roeper Richard E. Roeper (born October 17, 1959) is an American columnist and film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times''. He co-hosted the television series '' At the Movies'' with Roger Ebert from 2000 to 2008, serving as the late Gene Siskel's success ...

gave the film 2 out of 4 stars, writing, "All too often in ''7 Days in Entebbe'', primary characters on all sides of this 1970s period-piece political thriller state the obvious — and then state it again, and then have to stand around while someone else states the obvious one more time, just in case the folks in the seats have yet to grasp the stakes at hand and the dilemmas in play." Liel Leibovitz of '' Tablet'' criticized the film's downplaying of violence, such as the final raid being "shot in infuriating slow-motion and cross-cut with a modern dance performance", writing that the lack of violence eliminates the possibility of "catharsis" and renders the film a "vapid and vacuous statement".

Historical accuracy

The film puts

's death much earlier in the raid than in the Netanyahu family's version of events. Director Padilha said that this placement was based on interviews with participants in the raid. Although the production had commissioned British historian Saul David's 2015 study ''Operation Thunderbolt'' as a guide, the director opted to subordinate historical accuracy to dramatic effect in a number of scenes. Most notably, the division of the hostages and the Air France crew staying with the hostages are presented in a way that contradicts eyewitness accounts gathered by David.

Soundtrack

All cues were produced and composed by

Rodrigo Amarante Rodrigo Amarante de Castro Neves (born September 6, 1976) is a Brazilian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger. He is part of the bands Los Hermanos, Orquestra Imperial, and Little Joy, and released his first solo reco ...

Credits and personnel

* Rodrigo Amarante – Arranger, Composer, Engineer, Primary Artist, Producer * John Bergin – Art Direction * Matthew Compton – Arranger * Eric Craig – A&R * Andrew Feinberg – A&R * Mark Graham – Conductor, Orchestration * Todd Dahl Hoff – Arranger, Engineer * Jake Jackson – Mixing * Lewis Jones – Engineer * Paul Katz – Executive Producer * Samur Khouja – Engineer * Kirsten Lane – Music Consultant * Brian McNelis – Executive Producer * David Reichardt – Engineer * Skip Williamson – Executive Producer

References

External links

* * * * * {{José Padilha 2018 films 2018 action drama films 2018 action thriller films American action drama films British action drama films American action thriller films British action thriller films Cultural depictions of Idi Amin 2010s English-language films 2010s German-language films 2010s French-language films 2010s Hebrew-language films 2010s Arabic-language films Films about aircraft hijackings Films about battles and military operations Films about the Israel Defense Forces Films about terrorism in Africa Films directed by José Padilha Films set in 1976 Films set in Israel Films set in Uganda Films set in airports Films set on airplanes Films shot in Malta Films shot in the United Kingdom Operation Entebbe Participant (company) films Focus Features films DreamWorks Pictures films Working Title Films films 2018 multilingual films American multilingual films British multilingual films 2010s American films 2010s British films