7 Days in Entebbe

First Hit: The film creates intrigue and an artsy buildup but the ending falls flat and was unsatisfying.

Being old enough to remember the actual incident as it unfolded, at 26 I didn’t have enough world-wide or middle-east education to understand it.

However, today, I better understand the Palestinian Israeli struggle. In seeing this film, I was hoping for a better understanding of the events that took place forty-two years ago. Here, Brigitte Kuhlmann (Rosamund Pike) and Wilfried Bose (Daniel Bruhl) are two idealistic Germans who assist two Hamas Palestinian freedom fighters (aka: "terrorists"), in hijacking an Air France plane filled with passengers of all nationalities, 83 of them Jewish.

The hijacked plane, with permission from Idi Amin Dada (Nonso Anozie) the President of Uganda, lands at the old airstrip en Entebbe Uganda. Ushering the passengers off the plane and into the old dirty dilapidated terminal, the hijackers begin to negotiate with the Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin (Lior Ashkenazi). The ransom for the return of the plane and all the passengers and crew was $5M and the release of 53 Palestinian and pro-Palestinian militants 40 of whom were in Israel’s custody.

Rabin's Defense Secretary, Shimon Peres (Eddie Marsan), was a  hardliner holding the line that Israel does not negotiate for prisoners or ransoms. This is despite Rabin stating at some point in time we have to negotiate with the Palestinians and others, else they will never really flourish.

Because this is history we know what happens, Peres team successfully develops a rescue raid which eventually plays out.

The issue with this film is that they use a wonderful dance company to illustrate tension and well as back and forth scenes from the original planning of the hijacking and current scenes of the captured plane and hostage imprisonment. This part is excellent at building interest and tension, but when the big payoff comes, the details of the raid and rescue of the hostages from Entebbe, the film falters and shows little of this event and shows more of the dance company executing the dance we see them practice throughout the film.

I also thought the personal link between one of the dancers and one of the raiding Israeli soldiers was poorly developed and not defined.

Bruhl was good and interesting as the bookseller who wanted to  make a difference in the world, especially for the Palestinians. The film did share the issue of him being German taking Israeli hostages and that the world might bring up the Nazi holocaust. Pike was very strong as an obsessed woman who was fighting this cause and her own personal demons. Her intense wild-eyed stares after being up for seven days straight was excellent. Marsan was peculiarly strong. His half lidded facial expressions and being a supreme hawk, he had this “I told you so” way of getting his agenda completed. Anozie was excellent as Idi Amin. He physically imposed his Amin remarks just like I remember Amin, slightly off center and childlike. Ashkenazi was strong as Israel’s Prime Minister Rabin. His distaste for Peres’s hawk and kill only attitude was well acted. Gregory Burke wrote an engaging screenplay; however the ending was too creative for me, I wanted to see more of the actual rescue. Jose Padilha directed this with a nice touch except for the ending.

Overall: Although this was a good film, I kept wondering how close was this story to the real story.

Atomic Blonde

First Hit:  Action filled with Charlize Theron showing strong fighting skills.

Although this film is done in a flashback mode, following the story is not hampered. Although, as the film unfolded and after the end, I wondered how it would have played out if it was done sequentially?

The film begin by showing agent Lorraine Broughton (Theron) being interviewed by her boss Eric Gray (Toby Jones) and CIA department head Emmett Kurzfeld (John Goodman) while Gray’s boss Chief ‘C’ (James Faulkner) watches this behind glass. Lorraine is badly bruised but being sure of her story, she begins telling it.

She starts the interview with talking how she was sent to Berlin to find and obtain “The List” which has been put on microfiche and stored inside a watch. The list has information about each agent in British Intelligence and possibly the CIA, where they are and their possible covers.

Immediately after getting to West Berlin she gets attacked by Russians who what to kill her because they are the ones who are trying to obtain "the list" at all costs. Her contact and co-agent is David Percival (James McAvoy), however, the audience sees that Percival is sabotaging Lorraine’s attempt to obtain the watch (list). The one who put this list together and stored it in a watch has a code name and it’s Spyglass (Eddie Marsan). He’s doing this because he wants to trade giving up the list for freedom to West Berlin.

As the story unfolds and until the end, the audience thinks David is on multiple sides but so is Lorraine, it is just that the audience doesn't know how many she’s on.

Lorraine gets involved in so much fighting, shooting and stabbing that I can only imagine that she was really sore after doing this film.

One of the things I loved about this film was the color mood used to present this film. Everything was muted down from a color perspective. This in honor of being in both West and East Berlin at the time the wall comes down between the two parts of the city.

Theron was amazing in how she used her body and gave the audience a perception that she fights for a living. I loved her character and at times I laughed out loud in the audacity of some of the scenes. McAvoy was strong and his smart-alecky version of the character worked for me. Jones was perfect as Lorraine’s boss. Marsan was very good as the meek Spyglass. Goodman was very good as the CIA connection. Kurt Johnstad wrote an wild and fun screenplay. David Leitch had a clear vision in mind and for me it clearly worked well.

Overall:  It was a fun film and Theron was a joy to watch.

The Worlds End

First Hit:  Although funny at times, it wore on me and, in the end, didn’t quite work.

The film starts our rather drudgingly with Gary King (Simon Pegg) in some sort of support group telling a story that gets no intelligent discernible feedback from other members of the group.

Next thing you know, he’s recruiting his old friends to take a trip back to village where then stopped a tour of 12 Pubs some twenty years earlier. He wants them to finish the tour, like it will make his life different. King is manipulative and in a way that made me groan. Anyone falling for is stupid arguments for going deserved what they got.

Regardless of the quote un quote friendship that may have existed, there is really nothing that binds this group together. However, without this piece there would be no film, so… His friends in this caper are Steven (Paddy Considine), Andy (Nick Frost), Peter (Eddie Marsan), and Oliver (Martin Freeman).

The banter (writing) between the blokes, at times was laugh-out-loud outstanding, but in between the improbable plot and outcome put a dark (forget it) cloud over the entire film. It is like some of the bits were great, but the whole was left wanting.

The epilogue, sort of speak, did not help the cause of the film and therefore the ending was – “The World’s End”.

Pegg was funny at times but his character wore on me and I would have been rid of him early if I were one of his blokes. Considine, Frost, Marsan, and Freeman were all solid in their roles and upheld the story line very well. Pegg and Edgar Wright wrote the improbably script while Wright did a reasonable job as director tying it all together.

Overall:  Not much to enjoy except the funny bits which come few and far between.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed

First Hit: An interesting story with strong acting but minor components missing kept it from being great.

There are only three actors in this film. Danny (played by Martin Compston) who is the younger of the two kidnappers. Vic (played by Eddie Marsan) the other kidnapper and appears to be person who is in-charge and is the driving energy of their abduction of Alice Creed (played by Gemma Arterton).

The film begins with the two men systematically and without dialogue stripping out a room in a building somewhere in England and putting in soundproofing, locks, and covering the windows with plywood. The only thing in the bedroom is wooden bed with metal loops for attaching handcuffs and rope cinches for tying feet.

After setting up the bedroom they strip out the living room and kitchen with the bare essentials and leave. Immediately they steal a van, hijack Alice, and bring her to the bedroom where they strip her clothes off, handcuff and tie her to the bed. Working efficiently, they re-cloth Alice, gag her with a ball-in-mouth muzzle and put a hood over her head. Vic and Danny are have masks on so they cannot be seen and then finally reassure her that she will not be harmed.

As the story unfolds, the twists in their relationships begin to reveal cracks in Danny and Vic’s plan to obtain a lot of money for the return of Alice to her father. The aspects of the film that made it a bit unreal were the lack of any other outside noises, people and influences. How could they have brought this screaming girl into this building without anyone noticing? How come there aren’t any other people or outside influences on the road, in the warehouse, or in any other scene outside the apartment?

This stuff kept gnawing at me and took away from the film. It made it more like a play in which the environment was sequestered from real life.

Compston was strong as the young boy being influenced by the older man who kept him safe when he was in prison. He effectively had me believing he loved both the other man and the woman they abducted for very different reasons. Marsan was perfect as the older, in-charge, driven man who loved the younger boy. Arterton was effective and good as the abducted young lady. J Blakeson wrote and directed this and for the most part it was excellent.

Overall: Outside of the nagging thoughts about where is the rest of the world in this picture, it was well acted, directed and effective.