Starring Yaphet Kotto as Idi Amin

Over the weekend, I watched (via Netflix streaming) this well-made TV movie from 1977.  I remember hearing about it when it was originally on (5th grade), but didn't see it at the time.  And back then, you only got one chance!  I got interested because the hijacking and rescue was referenced in a circa 1980 British TV series I like, The Sandbaggers.  Raid on Entebbe does what I like a good political/action thriller to do--take its time to set up the story, keep the action grounded in real life, and have a high level of tension.*  Since I knew some details of the real-life story, I knew that it would have a fairly upbeat ending, so it wasn't really an unpleasant experience.  It's also got a great cast, with the great Martin Balsam, one of my favorite B-movie stars, John Saxon, and especially Yaphet Kotto in the choice role of General Idi Amin Dada, who he plays accurately as cuckoo, dangerous, and extremely annoying.  The film has great production values, and by virtue of being made contemporary to the actual event, is chock full of seventies verisimilitude.  It was much better than I expected it to be--highly recommended to those who like that kind of thing.

*The first two of these qualifications are largely lost today, due to the need to keep everything on a video game level of excitement and physical implausibility.  The third qualification (high level of tension) is often killed by movies failing to take some time to breathe and let the audience build up a feeling of dread.