The daring story of how thousands of beleaguered Ethiopian Jews stranded in refugee camps in Sudan were bravely smuggled to safety in Israel in the 1980s needs little extra drama. Tell that to Netflix.
The streamer’s “The Red Sea Diving Resort” is terribly overcooked, turning the real-life drama into a light caper like “Ocean’s 11,” adding cartoonish dialogue from hack superhero films and slathering the whole mess in white savior complex.
First, some background: To rescue Ethiopian Jews in inhospitable Sudan, Israeli secret service agents had the audacious plan of running an entire fake luxury beach resort as a front. Real tourists came and did yoga on the beach while the agents at night drove the Ethiopians from camps, ferried them onto dinghies and then to rescue boats, all under the noses of the Sudanese. Thrilling stuff, right?
Apparently not for writer and director Gideon Raff, who thought he needed to add cinematic meth to the story. He had a chance to make an African “Argo” and instead made an exploitative mess that mixes light Duran Duran-driven montages with scenes in which dozens of innocents are executed with bullets to the back of their heads.