Considering its potentially inflammatory subject matter, director José Padilha adopts a surprisingly balanced political approach to this 1970's era thriller, Entebbe.
Based to some degree upon actual events, Entebbe depicts the story of the hijacking of Air France flight 139 from Tel Aviv to Paris, by a handful of politically motivated freedom fighters.
Forcing the flight to land at a small airfield in Entebbe, Uganda, the hostages are then moved into the decrepit airport terminal where they are separated into two rooms. Jews and non-Jews. The proposed end game from here - should Israel then fail to release a number of captive terrorists, according to the hijackers' demands - probably needs no further explanation.
Such tales of hijacking we have of course seen umpteen times before. Sadly, Entebbe, the film - aside from informing those of us that weren't as yet clued up with regards to this particular hijack scenario - offers very little by way of originality, though it could be argued that Padilha does at least attempt to tap into the psychological quandaries faced by two of the German hijackers, Brigitte Kuhlmann (Rosamund Pike) and Wilfried Böse (Daniel Brühl), who are both seen to be wrestling with the morality of their actions, fearful of being portrayed as some sort of neo-Nazis.
But it's all rather unconvincing.
Indeed, the word 'unconvincing' is probably the choice adjective to describe pretty much all of the constituent parts of Padilha's piece. A film which, sadly, barely hits the mark on any sort of level. Dare I even make reference to Entebbe being something of a fatally grounded movie? One that fails to ever really take off. Hijacked by a poor script and under-cooked characters, as it is.
You get the picture.
Cheap gags, one and all.
Harsh but fair.
Even the film's 'climactic' conclusion centring around counter-terrorism operation Thunderbolt, is clumsy and breathtakingly limp in its reenactment of events, barely raising the pulse level.
Entebbe is effectively floored by a fatal combination of unconvincing characters, a rather walked and talked through narrative, an almost complete absence of either menace or suspense, and hundreds of bewildered looking half-arsed extras being regularly shuffled around from pillar to post to little or no dramatic effect.
Even acknowledging the impact of an initially apparently inconsequential interpretive dance routine which is then used to reasonable effect in enhancing the film's latter stages, such effective devices are few and far between, and offered nowhere near enough to leave this particular viewer feeling anything other than significantly underwhelmed.
On the plus side, hats off to the Israeli Commandos on somehow successfully turning an initial few ham-fisted brush strokes into an immaculate spray-painted body job, converting a brown Mercedes car into a black one in the process.
Hmmm. Miraculous, yet... unconvincing.
There's that word again.
This and hundreds of other films are reviewed on my WaywardWolfBlog
Based to some degree upon actual events, Entebbe depicts the story of the hijacking of Air France flight 139 from Tel Aviv to Paris, by a handful of politically motivated freedom fighters.
Forcing the flight to land at a small airfield in Entebbe, Uganda, the hostages are then moved into the decrepit airport terminal where they are separated into two rooms. Jews and non-Jews. The proposed end game from here - should Israel then fail to release a number of captive terrorists, according to the hijackers' demands - probably needs no further explanation.
Such tales of hijacking we have of course seen umpteen times before. Sadly, Entebbe, the film - aside from informing those of us that weren't as yet clued up with regards to this particular hijack scenario - offers very little by way of originality, though it could be argued that Padilha does at least attempt to tap into the psychological quandaries faced by two of the German hijackers, Brigitte Kuhlmann (Rosamund Pike) and Wilfried Böse (Daniel Brühl), who are both seen to be wrestling with the morality of their actions, fearful of being portrayed as some sort of neo-Nazis.
But it's all rather unconvincing.
Indeed, the word 'unconvincing' is probably the choice adjective to describe pretty much all of the constituent parts of Padilha's piece. A film which, sadly, barely hits the mark on any sort of level. Dare I even make reference to Entebbe being something of a fatally grounded movie? One that fails to ever really take off. Hijacked by a poor script and under-cooked characters, as it is.
You get the picture.
Cheap gags, one and all.
Harsh but fair.
Even the film's 'climactic' conclusion centring around counter-terrorism operation Thunderbolt, is clumsy and breathtakingly limp in its reenactment of events, barely raising the pulse level.
Entebbe is effectively floored by a fatal combination of unconvincing characters, a rather walked and talked through narrative, an almost complete absence of either menace or suspense, and hundreds of bewildered looking half-arsed extras being regularly shuffled around from pillar to post to little or no dramatic effect.
Even acknowledging the impact of an initially apparently inconsequential interpretive dance routine which is then used to reasonable effect in enhancing the film's latter stages, such effective devices are few and far between, and offered nowhere near enough to leave this particular viewer feeling anything other than significantly underwhelmed.
On the plus side, hats off to the Israeli Commandos on somehow successfully turning an initial few ham-fisted brush strokes into an immaculate spray-painted body job, converting a brown Mercedes car into a black one in the process.
Hmmm. Miraculous, yet... unconvincing.
There's that word again.
This and hundreds of other films are reviewed on my WaywardWolfBlog