A plane is hijacked and the hostages become pawns in a political battle in this 1977 film which has recently been released on DVD in the UK.
Based on actual events this chronicles the daring Israeli rescue mission in Uganda.
There are lots of familiar faces. Charles Bronson gives his usual stoic turn as the army general and there are appearances by James Woods, John Saxon and Robbert Loggia to name but a few. However, it’s Yaphet Kotto’s performance as the irrepressible Ugandan President Idi Amin that steals the show.
The film has aged well and the opening half hour perfectly captures ordinary people mingling while travelling together before being dragged into a life-threatening situation but the running time of 150 minutes makes it seem like forever until we get to the rescue. The lengthy political discussions add little to the drama so when the mission finally came around I was beginning to feel like a hostage myself.
At the end I was glad it was all over.
Ric’s Rating: Dodgy
A wee trip down memory lane, Ricky. Its nice to give the old movies a mention. My son won't watch anything that's more than five years old - unless they are LOTR or Star Wars. he can't believe if they are "old" they can be any good.
ReplyDeleteI don't often go pre-80s Michael but this was a review disc as it's new to dvd. Loads of old "classics" I haven't seen!
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