Main Cast: Peter Finch, Charles Bronson, Horst Buchholz, Martin Balsam, John Saxon, Jack Warden
Release Year: 1977
Country: US
Run Time: 113 minutes
Plot
Raid on Entebbe constitutes one of two all-star made-for-TV reenactments of the Entebbe rescue of July 4, 1976. On June 27, 1976, a jet carrying an international mix of passengers is hijacked by pro-Palestinian revolutionaries. The plane lands in Entebbe, Uganda, where President-for-life Idi Amin (Yaphet Kotto) struts about feigning concern, though his sympathy toward the hijackers is obvious. Many of the passengers are released, but 103 Israelis are kept in custody, and it becomes apparent that the revolutionaries plan to use these unfortunates as a bargaining chip for the release of imprisoned terrorists throughout the world. With virtually no other option, the Israeli government gives the go-ahead for Operation Thunderbolt, a commando raid on the Entebbe airport. The cast includes Charles Bronson as General Shomron, Jack Warden as Mordecai Gur, Sylvia Sidney as ill-fated passenger Dora Bloch, and, as Prime Minister Rabin, Peter Finch, whose performance (his last) won him an Emmy nomination. Raid on Entebbe first aired on January 9, 1977. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Less than a year after the successful Israeli rescue of hostages at Entebbe, Uganda, this production portrayed the July 4, 1976, event with such convincing realism that it earned a Golden Globe Award for Best Television Drama. Director Irvin Kershner paces the film brilliantly, switching scenes often after Palestinian and German terrorists hijack a French plane with Israeli passengers to Uganda and demand the release of imprisoned Palestinians and members of the German Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang. One moment Uganda's president Idi Amin Dada taunts the Israeli hostages at Entebbe; another moment, the Israeli cabinet in Jerusalem debates strategy. Eventually, the camera rides along with airborne Israeli commandos on a rescue mission dubbed Operation Thunderbolt. Yaphet Kotto is superb as Amin, a strutting tyrant who sympathizes with the hijackers. Kotto's performance reveals the true character of Amin: shrewd, unpredictable, sadistic. Peter Finch is solid as Yitzhak Rabin, the native-born Israeli prime minister and outstanding military strategist who ultimately orders the Entebbe raid. Other cast members also perform with distinction, including Martin Balsam as a hostage who dares to speak up; Sylvia Sidney as a sick passenger who ends up in a hospital, then disappears; and Charles Bronson as the general who leads the commandos to victory. Of the three films made about the Entebbe raid -- the other two are Victory at Entebbe and Operation Thunderbolt -- this one is arguably the best. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide
This version of Operation Entebbe is believed to be fairly accurate. The basic facts of the rescue of hostages held when hijackers working for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine boarded and hijacked an Air France plane recounts the events and response of the Israeli government and the controversy that the rescue stirred.
This version shows the difficult deliberations held by the Cabinet of Israel to decide on a top-secret military raid on the JewishSabbath by commandos; a difficult and daring operation carried out over 2500 miles from home, and of course, an unwillingness of the Israeli government to give in to terrorist demands. One commando was killed (the operation commander Yonatan Netanyahu, brother of future Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), as were three of the hostages, and 45 soldiers under the then dictator of Uganda, Idi Amin. A fourth hostage, Dora Bloch, who had been taken to Mulago Hospital in Kampala, was murdered by the Ugandans on Idi Amin's orders.
