The ultimate success of 7 Days in Entebbe varies from scene to scene, and even more from actor to actor.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The Playlist by Bradley Warren
There is a more polemic, thought-provoking work somewhere in 7 Days in Entebbe, held hostage by its commercial appeal.
When all the dust settles, we’re left right where we started, and with nothing to show for it but a fleeting reminder that peace is impossible without negotiation. It’s a lesson that history has failed to teach us, filtered through a movie that doesn’t understand why.
The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney
It should be a pulse-racing account of knife-edge real-life conflict and valiant heroics, full of needling political questions. Instead it's merely another slack thriller with underdeveloped characters and sputtering dramatic momentum.
The A.V. Club by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
Lacking both the exploitation-movie claustrophobic urgency of Golan’s "Operation Thunderbolt" and the Irwin Allen-disaster-film factor of the Irvin Kershner-directed NBC version, "Raid On Entebbe," 7 Days instead goes for businesslike professionalism.
A distinct air of staleness permeates the whole enterprise — even the palette is brown as an old biscuit, and Rodrigo Amarante’s minimal score is so politely low in the mix that it’s hardly even there.
The Guardian by Jonathan Romney
“Surprise and speed is the key,” someone comments at one point; the only surprise is how unspeedy and unsurprising this project turned out to be.
Chicago Sun-Times by Richard Roeper
[A] disappointingly listless thriller, in which at least four of the titular seven days feel like place-holders, with everyone holding their positions and regurgitating the same concerns and regrets and debates.
Slant Magazine by Steve Macfarlane
The conflation of historical complexities makes for cheap pathos throughout, complete with weeping mothers and the seemingly endless dredging up of the terrorists' obvious moral equivalence.
Screen International by Wendy Ide
Although much of the film is effectively claustrophobic, it is too bogged down by exposition to fully take off.