LA Liz, Burt, the first lady of the American theater, a future legend and the hammy actor who upset a goodbye girl. Plus one legend who never won a competitive award and a child actress spitting up chocolates rather than pea soup. This is just one of several films about the Entebe hostage crisis, but not as good as the one which came out a year later and whuch has been declared to be the definitive version. As the president of Israel, Anthony Hopkins seems far too young, a detail made much more obvious as most of his scenes are with Burt Lancaster. With her character's name changed from Dora Bloch to a fictional one, Helen Hayes has two ironic details about her appearance in this film. Once again, she's a little old lady on an airplane, and she had worked earlier with Sylvia Sidney who won great acclaim for playing Dora in "Raid on Entebe". Hayes has to really stretch belief as a Jewish matron, and fortunately, she never tries to he overly cute.
The well meaning young girl played by Linda Blair who thinks that she's Forrest Gump with her box of chocolates is unintentionally funny, seems to be one of the most remember elements of this film, like something out of "Airplane!". Elizabeth Taylor has a small role with a few scenes as Kirk Douglas's wife, and she gets generic billing. But it's distracting to see her with the feeling that she doesn't belong here. Theodore Bikel, as a Belgian Jew makes it clear that he doesn't want to die along with Israeli Jews, and while it indicates a bit of cowardice, the audience really can't blame him. Jessica Walter, David Groh and Richard Dreyfeuss are other familiar faces. One scene has a group of hostages put in danger by an arrogant one who keeps trying to goad them into attacking the terrorists. Helmet Berger shows his fear as one of them, but Bibi Besch is truly nasty as the one female terrorist whose beautiful face hides a bitterly ugly soul. As Idi Amin, Julius Harris is a big garbage, gregarious but deadly, and majorly over the top. Enjoyable but not as good as "Raid".
The well meaning young girl played by Linda Blair who thinks that she's Forrest Gump with her box of chocolates is unintentionally funny, seems to be one of the most remember elements of this film, like something out of "Airplane!". Elizabeth Taylor has a small role with a few scenes as Kirk Douglas's wife, and she gets generic billing. But it's distracting to see her with the feeling that she doesn't belong here. Theodore Bikel, as a Belgian Jew makes it clear that he doesn't want to die along with Israeli Jews, and while it indicates a bit of cowardice, the audience really can't blame him. Jessica Walter, David Groh and Richard Dreyfeuss are other familiar faces. One scene has a group of hostages put in danger by an arrogant one who keeps trying to goad them into attacking the terrorists. Helmet Berger shows his fear as one of them, but Bibi Besch is truly nasty as the one female terrorist whose beautiful face hides a bitterly ugly soul. As Idi Amin, Julius Harris is a big garbage, gregarious but deadly, and majorly over the top. Enjoyable but not as good as "Raid".