One star. Rated PG-13, for violence, dramatic intensity and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang
I cannot recall ever having
endured such an egregious example of directorial miscalculation.
This isn’t a movie; it’s a
jaw-droppingly clumsy blend of cinema, experimental theater and performance
art, orchestrated by director José Padilha in a manner that undercuts the drama
at every turn. Such a mash-up might be right at home in an opulent fantasy akin
to La La Land or The Greatest Showman, but definitely not for a supposedly
fact-based re-telling of the 1976 hostage crisis that took place from June 27
through July 4 at Uganda’s Entebbe Airport.
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| Gung-ho German "revolutionaries" Wilfried Böse (Daniel Brühl) and Brigitte Kuhlmann (Rosamund Pike) repeatedly, endlessly discuss what they'll eventually have to do with the terrified hostages awaiting their fate at Uganda's Entebbe Airport. |
This should be a taut,
edge-of-the-seat nail-biter akin to Paul Greengrass’ United 93, but with the far more triumphant outcome that deservedly
retains its reputation as the most audacious rescue mission in modern history.
But this film’s script — Gregory Burke, hide your head in shame — is undercut
constantly by laughably melodramatic dialog, tedious talking-heads debates, and
an insipid boyfriend/girlfriend sidebar.
But that’s not the worst. The
film opens, closes and is frequently interrupted — even during the climax! — by rehearsals for Israeli choreographer
Ohad Naharin’s 1990 work, Echad Mi Yodea,
presented by the Batsheva Dance Company. It’s impossible to overstate the
degree to which this ruins the tension, robs the suspense, and pulls us
completely out of the narrative.
It’s akin to having the members
of the dance troupe Stomp! commandeer the stage in the middle of the famous
battlefield speech from Henry V (not
that Burke is fit to sharpen Shakespeare’s quills).
Events begin when an Air France
passenger plane is hijacked by four terrorists: two members of the so-called
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, allied with two sympathetic
German revolutionaries. We never get much of a bead on the Palestinians,
instead spending far too much time with the Germans: Wilfried Böse (Daniel
Brühl) and Brigitte Kuhlmann (Rosamund Pike).
At first blush, they seem
hard-hearted and dedicated to the task at hand. But once the plane is diverted
to Entebbe, and Böse and Kuhlmann are placed in charge of keeping the hostage
passengers compliant, cracks begin to emerge. They almost become cartoon
terrorists: wannabe revolutionaries joining the cause because it’s “cool.”
Brühl’s Böse is a former
bookseller: too quick to yield to compassion; too willing to identify with the
hostages; too obviously unfamiliar with the gun he wields. “I want to throw
bombs into the consciousness of the masses!” he proclaims, trying to sound
tough when challenged by one of his Palestinian colleagues. Not even Brühl can
sell such a creaky line, and his “terrorist with a heart of gold” aura is
simply offensive.
Pike’s Kuhlmann talks a better game,
but the actress shades the role in a way that suggests she merely wishes to be perceived as tough, for the sake of
appearances, despite a marshmallow center she struggles so hard to conceal (and
which is revealed late in the story, when she makes a phone call home to her
lover).
This film’s effort to “soften”
these two — in the interest of PC fairness? — goes far beyond artistic license;
it’s reprehensible. The actual Kuhlmann is known to have been a virulent anti-Semite
who pistol-whipped passengers, terrorized Jewish hostages and deservedly earned
the epithet of “Nazi,” with which she quickly was tagged.
That aside, the constant
philosophical discussions between Böse and Kuhlmann wear very thin ... as do the equally protracted arguments taking place in
Israel, between Defense Minister Shimon Peres (Eddie Marsan) and Gen. Motta Gur
(Mark Ivanir), who favor a rescue operation; and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
(Lior Ashkenazi), who worries about the consequences of failure.
The tone simply isn’t right, in
either case. We need look only to the recent Darkest Hour, to see how true tension can be developed during such
behind-the-scenes dithering, while a crisis unfolds in the world outside.
Padilha, in marked contrast, gives this film’s numerous discussions no more
weight than one would find in a bland procedural chat prior to a high school
Model United Nations debate.
But wait: It gets worse. The
intimate exchanges between one Israeli special-ops soldier (Ben Schnetzer) and
his dancer girlfriend (Zina Zinchenko), as he waits to hear whether the rescue
mission will be a go, are simply inane. She, apparently intended to represent
the pacifist, try-the-bargaining-table-approach that Rabin also favors, doesn’t
want him to go.
“Why does it have to be you?” she repeatedly whines.
“I fight so you can dance,” he
answers, with clipped practicality.
To which she replies, “What if I
stop dancing?”
If that final question was
intended to score a rational philosophical point, it escaped me. As did the
reason for spending so much pointless screen time with these two.
(It should be noted that
Zinchenko is one of the dancers whose antics repeatedly interrupt this film ...
which is a neat trick, given that the dance in question wouldn’t be created for
another 14 years. That, at least, can be chalked up as “forgivable” artistic
license.)
The time wasted with this soldier
and his dancer girlfriend, and Böse and Kuhlmann, is all the more frustrating
because of the far more intriguing sidebar characters who demand more attention.
Denis Ménochet delivers a terrific performance as Air France flight engineer
Jacques Le Moine. He’s persuasive at every turn, particularly when he baits
Böse during a brief chat: the one and only time that Burke’s dialog crackles
with energy and ironic tension.
Nonso Anozie is appropriately
scary as Idi Amin, who helps the terrorists for his own peculiar reasons. While
not painted as the strutting buffoon we’ve seen in earlier depictions, Anozie
nonetheless makes him an unpredictably volatile narcissist whose involvement in
this crisis adds weight to Rabin’s uncertainty, back in Israel.
Anozie’s memorable performance
notwithstanding, it also should be noted that this film minimizes — hell,
completely evades — the actual Amin’s sociopathic brutality.
Angel Bonanni displays the
necessary grim resolve as Yonatan “Yoni” Netanyahu, placed in charge of the
ground assault at Entebbe Airport. If that last name looks familiar, it should;
he’s the older brother of Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu.
Trudy Weiss also stands out as an
elderly passenger — with a tell-tale tattoo on her arm — who panics and is
“talked down” by Böse, during one of his kinder moments. (As if.) Although not
named in the film, the credits identify her character as Dora Bloch, which is
another of this script’s deplorable departures from reality; the actual Bloch’s
descendants will be incensed by what happens here.
Older viewers may recall the
dueling, star-studded American TV films that emerged almost immediately after
this hostage crisis and its stunning resolution. ABC’s Victory at Entebbe struck first, with a cast that included Anthony
Hopkins (Rabin), Burt Lancaster (Peres), Richard Dreyfuss (Yoni Netanyahu) and
Kirk Douglas (the fictitious Hershel Vilnofsky). NBC’s rival Raid on Entebbe featured Peter Finch
(Rabin), Charles Bronson (commando leader Dan Shomron) and Yaphet Kotto (Amin).
Israel responded with 1977’s Operation Thunderbolt, which featured
Klaus Kinski (Böse) and Sybil Danning (a renamed Kulhmann) and an extensive
Israeli cast. It offers detailed authenticity lacking in both American
productions, which lean toward superficial Hollywood bombast ... but all three
are far more suspensefully entertaining than this ludicrously misguided new
version from Padilha and Burke.
That’s pretty sad, when an
attempt at “serious filmmaking” pales alongside crowd-pleasing Tinseltown
fluff.
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