Operation Thunderbolt (film)
Operation Thunderbolt ( Hebrew מבצע יונתן, Mivtsa Yonatan ) is a 1977 Israeli drama film directed by Menahem Golan . It is about Operation Entebbe .
action
In the summer of 1976, numerous passengers, including Israelis, Americans, French and Germans, wanted to fly from Tel Aviv to Paris . Flight 139 lands on schedule in Athens, with terrorists boarding unnoticed. Pocket checks are not carried out due to a fictitious power failure. Shortly after the start in Paris, German and Palestinian terrorists take control of the occupation. The leaders of the group are the Germans Wilfried Böse and Gabriele, who calls herself Halima. They inform captain Michel Bacos that evil is in command from now on. He gives instructions that the aircraft take a new course to the southwest. A co-pilot activates the signal that the aircraft has been hijacked.
In Israel, the signal creates a hectic pace, and kidnapping is given top priority. The first press conferences, however, make waiting as the order of the day, as nobody knows where the plane will land. In the meantime, passengers have to hand in their passports on board. A pregnant passenger cuts herself so that she begins to bleed profusely. When the plane lands in Benghazi for the first time , the woman is handed over to an ambulance. However, to the dismay of the Israeli military, the plane takes off again and finally ends its flight in Entebbe . This causes problems in Israel, as there are no diplomatic relations with Uganda .
As in Libya , where the kidnappers received greetings from Muammar al-Gaddafi , it is also evident in Uganda that the kidnappers maintain good contact with the rulers. Böse and Gabriele see themselves as "peace fighters". If passengers do not understand that Germans are kidnapping Israelis, they respond with rejection of the German state, which must be destroyed. Their goal is to free 43 terrorists from Israeli prisons, with the support of ruler Idi Amin , who appears on the scene. You give the Israeli government 24 hours. In the Entebbe airport concourse, they separate the Israeli hostages from the others who are being released. Only the French crew refused to abandon the passengers and remained in the airport building with the Israelis. In Israel, the kidnappers make it clear that after the deadline they will begin shooting the hostages.
There is growing pressure in Israel to give in to the hostage takers' demands. The government is publicly responding to the hostage-takers' demands, which means more time. A small unit under Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu , called Yoni, is now planning to free the hostages, with the element of surprise playing a decisive role. The hostages are to be rescued at night with just four military planes, which are disguised as official Ugandan government vehicles, and several fast jeeps. The unit plans the attack and practices the procedures that must be carried out as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, old Dora Bloch is being taken to a hospital in Entebbe after she was threatened with suffocation from food.
With the deadline for the terrorists to be released, the four military planes fly to Entebbe before the mission is authorized by the government. They only get consent when they are in the air. In Entebbe, the group around Yoni succeeds in freeing the hostages. In addition to the hostage takers, three hostages are also killed. Yoni, in turn, was shot at by Ugandan soldiers from a watchtower and died on the way back to Tel Aviv. Dora Bloch remains in the hospital in Uganda. In Tel Aviv, the military machines are greeted by cheering crowds, with joy for many mixed with the sadness of the few who have lost loved ones. Yoni's girlfriend, to whom the soldier had promised marriage before his departure, is comforted by the men in his unit and taken off the tarmac.
production
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Operation Thunderbolt was one of several film adaptations that appeared shortly after Operation Entebbe . The television film Entebbe was already released in the year of the kidnapping in 1976, ... who know no mercy followed in January 1977 on television as well. Operation Thunderbolt was, after all , the first feature film about the hostage rescue. As in the earlier films, the role of Wilfried Böse was taken over by a German-speaking actor in the cinema, so after Helmut Berger (1976) and Horst Buchholz (1977, TV) Klaus Kinski was seen as Böse. A special feature of the film was that, in addition to family members of the hostages, numerous decision-makers such as Shimon Peres , Jigal Allon , Moshe Dayan and Jitzchak Rabin themselves appear in the film. In the film, the fate of Dora Bloch remains open, as it was not known at the time that she was murdered in revenge by Idi Amin's troops.
The film was shot in or near Eilat (scenes in Entebbe), Tel Aviv ( Ben Gurion airport ) and Jerusalem ( Knesset scenes). It was released in Israeli cinemas in 1977. In Germany it was first seen on May 21, 1987 on Sat.1 .
criticism
For the lexicon of international film , Operation Thunderbolt was “too much shaped by a one-sided ideology to be able to provide a nearly authentic picture. The mere heroization of the commando actions obscures the real problems of the Middle East conflict. "
Awards
Operation Thunderbolt was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1978 .
DVD
The film was released on DVD in Germany in 2019 under the title 'Operation Entebbe'.
Web links
- Operation Thunderbolt in the Internet Movie Database (English)