Seven Days in Entebbe

More than 40 years after the fact, Seven Days in Entebbe offers an opportunity for a fresh cinematic perspective on the 1976 kidnapping and subsequent rescue of more than 100 airline passengers stranded in Uganda.

However, this mediocre docudrama is more tedious than thought-provoking as it tends to embellish historical details instead of interpreting them in a meaningful or relevant way.

For those unfamiliar, the story begins with the hijacking of a Paris-bound flight from Tel Aviv by German radicals — led by Wilfried (Daniel Bruhl) and Brigitte (Rosamund Pike) — working for Palestinian rebel groups.

The plane is diverted to Uganda, where the passengers become hostages under the watchful eye of dictator Idi Amin (Nonso Anozie), who supports the rebel cause. The ransom is the release of militant political prisoners in Israel.

From there, the film cuts frequently to contentious negotiations among government officials in Jerusalem, including leader Yitzhak Rabin (Lior Ashkenazi) and defense minister Shimon Peres (Eddie Marsan). Despite a policy that forbids negotiating with terrorists, they agree on a daring rescue strategy involving a raid by commandos with the Israel Defense Forces.

The film frames the incident as an encapsulation of decades of hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians. As foreshadowed by Rabin: “If we cannot negotiate, this war will never end.”

Brazilian director Jose Padilha (who helmed the RoboCop remake) offers a taut re-creation of the hijacking and its immediate aftermath. By comparison, the depiction of behind-the-scenes finger-pointing and bureaucratic bickering doesn’t carry the same level of suspense. In other words, of the “seven days” in the title, days 1 and 7 are considerably more exciting than 2 through 6.

At any rate, the film capably captures the period, not just visually but also in terms of sociopolitical context. Yet the inherent intrigue in the true-life source material is compromised by an abundant of melodrama in the bilingual script by Gregory Burke (71) — speaking of which, it seems odd to have German characters talking in their native language but Israelis speaking English. As loyalties shift among the characters, so does the screenplay’s sympathy for everyone except the hostages.

The incident provided fodder for no fewer than three films in the year after it occurred, with varying degrees of success. Despite its modern approach, this retelling never takes flight.

Rated PG-13, 107 minutes.