Very disappointed :(

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Lack of good storyline.

Charming and brutal

This movie is worth watching if for Yaphet Kotto's performance as Idi Amin Dada if nothing else. He's great in the role.All the actors put on great performances, but Kotto is just hilarious as was Amin. I mean, the big buffoon billed himself as "His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular," for crying out loud. So anyone with that kind of "personality" (and I use the term very loosely here cause Amin had...shall we say...some real 'issues') has to be played by someone with some real skill and Kotto did a bang-up job.Not only that bit of color makes this a great movie, but it also gives you a real deep understanding of just what a feat this raid was to plan, get approval and pull off.

For eight days in Israel everyone held their breath as Palestinian terrorists captured an Air France jet bound for Tel Aviv and added a new twist to hostage negotiation. No taking an El-Al flight which would have involved the Israelis directly, no taking it to an Arab country where the issue might have been joined. This time a foreign airliner that happened to be going to Israel with about 100 of its citizens returning from abroad. And where do they take it, but Entebbe capital of Uganda and ruled by a certified psycho.In his farewell performance Peter Finch leads an impressive cast as Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin who has to make a crucial decision as to response to the terrorists and has 8 days to do it. That's the deadline that the terrorists have placed with their demands on several European countries and Israel to release the Palestinian 'freedom fighters' from various prisons.A solid cast of players are giving some great performances in Raid On Entebbe. Most singled out is Yaphett Kotto as Idi Amin, Uganda's strutting dictator who was relishing the spotlight on himself on the world stage. I could also single out Charles Bronson as General Dan Sharon who led the ground troops in the rescue and in a very small role James Woods who is a reservist called up to serve on the rescue. His scene of farewell with his family is very touching.The only casualty among the passengers is Sylvia Sidney who took ill during the crisis and apparently had the effrontery to question the intentions of Idi Amin. Like Woods represents a young generation of Jews, Sylvia Sidney as Dora Bloch was the Holocaust generation who in her last hours was not allowed to die without terror. No one knows what happened to Dora Bloch after she was taken to the Ugandan hospital, but there is all kinds of speculation about the only really unanswered part of the Entebbe story.As for Rabin he met his own martyrdom in the Nineties by a fanatic Jewish terrorist who thought the man who rescued the Israelis in Entebbe wasn't doing enough to push perpetual war on the Arabs. And the man who played him died five days after this film was aired on television and got a posthumous Emmy nomination. That went with Peter Finch's posthumous Oscar for Network. Emmy nominations also went to Yaphett Kotto and Martin Balsam who played the passenger spokesperson.One of the best made for television films Raid On Entebbe should not be missed.

While a lot of such Special Forces operations make occur worldwide, their translation into movies may themselves not be so good. Not in this movie's case. The Israeli raid on entebbe is quite unique as far as anti hijacking operations go but this movie is pretty flawless in portraying what and how it happened? Authentic weapons, equipment, aircraft and settings have all been used. The acting is excellent and even the general human reactions to the hijacking have been portrayed quite well and the reality of civilian casualties which occurred has also been included. From beginning to end, this movie never drags and is one of the best I've ever seen.

This was a superb account of the Israeli raid to rescue Jewish hostages held at the Entebbe airport after a hijack in 1976. The dilemma facing the Israeli government as it tried to decide on a course of action was believably portrayed, the plight of the hostages seemed very real, and, even though one knows what the outcome will be (this, is, after all based on an historical event) I was glued to my seat watching. The cast was excellent (I thought Yaphet Kotto did a marvellous job of portraying Idi Amin.) Even Charles Bronson (whom I have never considered a particularly good actor) did a creditable job as the Israeli officer in overall command of the operation. There were, in my view, very few weaknesses to this movie.