TV movies don't get much better than this. Very well made thriller about a true story, told the way it should be; without exaggerating, without unnecessary melodrama, realistically, with all the right details and no stupid mistakes (even the cigarette brands where authentic for the period), the closest possible to what it was really like.Most of all, the filmmakers do not worry about being politically correct, they tell a story about a very troublesome period in recent German (and not only) history, worrying only about being true to the story itself! How refreshing! My compliments, very well done!

Much of this film was shot at the old Casablanca airport as Royal Air Maroc has a 737 identical to 'Landshut' (the hijacked plane) which is grounded there. It was repainted in Lufthansa colours, and the cast was confined to the aircraft for up to 12 - 14 hours a day, so the feeling of being 'hijacked' was very real.... no breaks for long periods, very hot, quite an experience for the extras who made up the majority of the passengers.Also, the whole film of the hijacking was shot 'in sequence' over ten days, and the 'passengers' were not briefed on how the 'hijackers' were going to behave, some of the fear you see is 'real', not acted. Even tho' you know it's just a prop, having a gun waved in your face when you are not expecting it is NOT a nice experience.And very little make up and so on was used, putting on clothes dirty from yesterday at the start of each days filming really put us in the mood. If the film is as realistic to watch as it was to be part of, then it has to be a really good film - it hasn't come to Maroc yet, so all I've seen of it are the (video) rushes we were shown every evening.

It seems that everything Pro 7 (and the private stations) does wrong, when producing a TV-movie, the public-service-stations do right. Maybe because they hire good actors, directors and writers for their shows. I do not know, where to begin. The actors were top notch. Thomas Kretschmann, who we last saw as the Sea-Wolf, played Captain Jürgen Schumann in this one. And in my opinion, he was never better, he completely disappeared in the role. But so did all the other actors. Jürgen Tarrach as Hans Jürgen Wischnewski and Herbert Knaup as the GSG9 leader were good as always. Christian Berkel, who I think is one of the best German actors, played chancellor Helmut Schmidt. And although I knew he was in this movie, I did not recognize him until half way through. He wore a toupee and, I think, prosthetics, but he was nevertheless, or because of that, very good. Of all the actors Simon Verhoeven impressed me most, because of his subtle acting style. When watching him, I never thought I watched an actor at work, but a real person. That was the case with all the other actors, too, but somehow Verhoeven was little bit better. His "real" acting and that of the other actors only added to the documentary style of the movie. Sometimes I almost forgot that I was watching a staged movie. The camera was shaky and it is obvious that the director was inspired by Battlestar Galacticas camera work, which is not a bad thing. Roland Suzo Richter did a great job directing this movie, which I had hope would become a feature film. But, alas, it is not. Speaking about the director - this is what you get, when you hire a good one, namely a good movie. All the scenes were very well staged, especially the action scenes. They did not milk the stunts like the German TV shows produced by Action Concept, who always show every stunt, and be it only a guy falling from a bike, from 25 angles. I could go on and on, but why, when everything was good. 8 out of ten, because it was only a TV-movie.

As a student I was part of - what we call now - the "68 generation". Protest was flowing over all major universities in Germany. This concentrated on the so called "establishment" and later on the Vietnam war was in the focus.A perverted group of this protest movement was the "RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion)". The young German Republic was in no way prepared to give an appropriate response to these terrorists. The reactions of the government to the terror have been helpless and the police had no means to meet the aggressiveness and cynicism of these people. There was a climate of helplessness and hate all over the country.The climax was in 1977 the kidnapping of Hans Martin Schleyer, a representative of the hated "establishment". The purpose of this kidnapping was to free other terrorists who were in jail in Stuttgart/South Germany.The government, represented by Chancellor Helmut Schmidt refused this blackmail and so the terrorists asked their Palestinian friends for help. In the end a group of four PLFP (Popular Front of Liberation for Palestine) terrorists hijacked the German Lufthansa jet "Landshut" with over 80 tourists on board.These are the facts and many documentations have analyzed this event.The film which is no documentation - has a completely different approach and shows the "inside" view of this drama. As all passengers survived, there are many people who could tell what happened inside the plane during these long, dramatic hours. And this gives a lot of suspense - the story of the "Landshut" was never told like this before. You can feel the fear, panic and sometimes the hope of all the passengers who didn't have the foggiest idea of what happened outside - what their government did. They felt lost and given up by their country.The movie shows in a stunning way the people acting inside and outside of the aircraft. So, as a viewer you have the complete picture of what happened and you get an idea about the fear and uncertainty of all persons involved in this dramatic situation.The actors give a realistic picture of the situation and are brilliant, especially Saïd Taghmaoui as Mahmud, Thomas Kretschmann as captain and Herbert Knaup as commander of the special forces "GSG9". Also very good Nadja Uhl as stewardess and Christian Berkel impersonating chancellor Helmut Schmidt.Even if you are not familiar with this part of the German history, this film is worth while to be seen.