7 Days in Entebbe (José Padilha, 2018)

[DarkImbecile]

Jose Padilha's 7 Days in Entebbe (just Entebbe outside the US) is an odd stew of failed ingredients: an action movie with only one weak action scene, a political thriller that seems too afraid to engage more than superficially with the issues at hand and so instead serves as an origin story for modern Israeli politicians, and - I swear - a showcase for modern dance. You'd think a mix of German revolutionaries, Palestinian militants, sparring Israeli hard-liners and doves, terrified hostages, and His Deranged Excellency Idi Amin himself would yield at least one compelling character around which the film could anchor itself, and yet - despite the best efforts of Daniel Bruhl, Rosamund Pike, and the rest of the cast - the script can't bring itself to give any one of these groups enough of a spotlight to allow the audience some real investment in them. The film has some decent production values, I guess, and Padilha keeps the camera moving enough to keep boredom from setting in too deeply, but ultimately doesn't have anything compelling to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the efficacy of revolutionary action, or negotiation with terrorists.

Perhaps most damning given his reputation as an action director from the Elite Squad films (which I haven't seen) is the way Padilha utterly fails to execute the climactic raid sequence. Beware of spoilers for a famous 42-year-old event:

SpoilerShow

Padilha gives maybe five minutes of screen time to the famous raid itself - and that's with almost all of it happening in exaggerated slow-motion - while shortchanging the deaths of the two lead actors and leaving out the entire back end of the evacuation of the hostages under fire from the Ugandan military, not to mention the reactionary murders ordered by Idi Amin against one of the hostages left behind and hundreds Kenyan nationals in Uganda (seriously, the 1,000-word "Raid" portion of the Wikipedia article on the operation is more compelling than this entire two-hour film). Not to sound bloodthirsty, but the end titles of the film note that 55+ people were killed in the operation, and we see maybe a dozen people get shot (only three or four of whom are recognizable, despite having spent the whole film with the seven hijackers and the key commandos); meanwhile, the sequence entirely leaves out the most dramatic part of the escape, the three hostages killed in the crossfire, and the dozen fighter jets the Israelis destroyed as part of the operation. When this is the key event the whole film is built around, maybe make sure to give us a little more of the human drama and consequences involved; we don't even get a 30-second reaction by Nonso Anozie's Idi Amin to the raid after the movie has multiple characters emphasize how insane the man is.

Instead, apparently determined to top Spielberg's infamous non sequitur sex scene spliced with the killing of the hostages in Munich, Padilha intercuts his far less interesting shootout with - again, I swear this is true - a modern dance routine starring the girlfriend of one of the Israeli commandos. Some version of this dance sequence shows up three times in the film, and that's not counting the entirely separate dance number that is shown during the end credits. To Padilha's credit, these are actually shot much more viscerally than the gunfight to which he gives about half as much screen time, which makes it even more clear that everyone's time would have been better spent had he just made a movie about an Israeli modern dance company.

[knives]

despite the best efforts of Daniel Bruhl, Rosamund Pike, and the rest of the cast

Talk about black face casting, yeesh.

[DarkImbecile]

despite the best efforts of Daniel Bruhl, Rosamund Pike, and the rest of the cast

Talk about black face casting, yeesh.

To be clear, they're playing the Germans; it's not like one of them is Idi Amin.

[knives]

Oh, I thought you were saying they were playing the Israelis.

[DarkImbecile]

Is it better or worse if I tell you Eddie Marsan plays Shimon Peres? (There are several Israeli actors playing other significant roles, including Yitzhak Rabin)

[knives]

To be honest I'm usually fine with non-Jews playing ethnic Jews, but when the main crew has no Jews as members it feels kind of racist or at least ignorant to me especially on a topic like this. The most analogous examples of what I mean that I can think of is the bad taste Penn as Milk would be if the director and writer were straight or Anthony Quinn as Hamza if that movie weren't being made by Muslims. I guess theoretically it would also be like casting European Hispanic people to play African America characters though I'm not sure if the analogy completely holds water since it takes it out of the realm of ethnicity somewhat.

[lacritfan]

To be honest I'm usually fine with non-Jews playing ethnic Jews, but when the main crew has no Jews as members it feels kind of racist or at least ignorant to me especially on a topic like this. The most analogous examples of what I mean that I can think of is the bad taste Penn as Milk would be if the director and writer were straight or Anthony Quinn as Hamza if that movie weren't being made by Muslims. I guess theoretically it would also be like casting European Hispanic people to play African America characters though I'm not sure if the analogy completely holds water since it takes it out of the realm of ethnicity somewhat.

Curious what you thought about Munich?

[knives]

The film is so successfully Jewish that it manages to make Craig, Bana and the rest work. I like it a lot though I think have two Jews be the auteurs help with that perception. A really weird case is American Hustle against that crappy exodus film where the casting of Bale felt super organic to one and it the other.