Operation Thunderbolt (Mivtsa Yonatan), 1977

Mivtza Yonatan (or as it is better known around the world, Entebbe Operation and Operation Thunderbolt), in which the Israeli army managed to take over the Entebbe airport in Uganda, to free all hostages of the kidnapped Air France plane and to bring (almost) everybody home in one piece, is a story told a million times over, was made into a very bad Hollywood action movie and was used as the basis for countless B-movies. This version, however, is unique. To begin with, many of the key characters of the operation (Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin and Yigal Alon, all of whom played key rolls in the decision making process of this operation) were acting as themselves. Secondly, the Israeli army actively participated in the making of the movie, thus making the level of realism higher than most other action movies ever made.
The film doesn´t have big stars like Peter Finch, Charles Bronson, Yaphet Kotto and Martin Balsam, among others in the TV version "Raid on Entebbe", made in 1976 but they tried to be more realistic and better final battle scenes. Good music score too.
Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan "Yonni" Netanyahu (Yehoram Gaon) was the older brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, the future Israeli Prime Minister.  He was the only Jewish soldier  killed in the action.

Director:  Menahem Golan
Writers:   Ken Globus, Menahem Golan, Clarke Reynolds
Stars:    Yehoram Gaon, Gila Almagor, Assi Dayan, Klaus Kinski, Sybil Danning.

Subtitles in English.

YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/19pyR0zeywI

 
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