One of the ickier and more outdated cinematic tropes still popping up in movies is that of the white saviour. The white guys who appear and save the day when the locals can't save themselves. Even when it's based on a true story it's something that feels cringeworthy in this day and age and my god does it feel cringeworthy during The Red Sea Diving Resort, the latest Netflix original that's out now.
In the late 70's a Jewish Ethiopian man named Kebede Bimro (Michael K. Williams) contacted the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, in an attempt to smuggle Ethiopian jews who had been targeted for ethnic cleansing out of Sudan and into Israel. Agent Ari Levinson (Chris Evans) was his contact and The Red Sea Diving Resort became the place were things would get done. The hotel resort on the coast of the Red Sea was to become their base of operations but vicious warlords and unwitting tourists soon put a kink in their well laid plans.
This wasn't a good film. It's a dull watch that not even Captain America himself could have salvaged. It shouldn't have been dull because it has the seeds of a compelling story. A modern(ish) day retelling of the old Moses story about a man leading the Jews out of Africa, across the water and back home. A film about a persecuted group within a persecuted whole. People who've suffered immensely, people with a real story to tell, people who come a distant second place to the group of handsome white folk who come to save them from themselves. And with that you just lose all interest. It's just another thriller. Blah. There could have been an interesting story here but now....snooze.
It's a film with a confused sense of self too. Like 2012's far superior thriller Argo, it takes a look at a troubled period of recent history and blends it with a little humour to make it easier to swallow. But here the humour in a group of assassins and spies trying to run a pretend hotel is mixed in with moments of atrocity that makes it all a very bitter pill. An 1980 set montage (scored by a song released in 1982, shoddy) lightens the atmosphere and then moments later you're watching a village full of innocents being massacred and it just makes for a horribly awkward watch. Does it want to be a light hearted romp? A damning indictment of sectarian hatred? A love letter to a simpler black and white time? A sneaky slice of pro Israeli propaganda slipped quietly into the world's biggest streaming service? It's all very messy. Spielberg's Munich did that latter with far more conviction 14 years ago.
A good cast tries but they need better material than this. Chris Evans is Chris Evans, always reliable and Michael K.Williams gives a soulful performance far better than this film deserved but everyone else just blends into background noise. Haley Bennett, Alessandro Nivola and Greg Kinnear turn up but they have no impact, no substance. It's annoying when you see a fine cast like this wasted but it pales to the treatment the African cast get. They are portrayed as a trembling mass, a group of helpless children. You'll actually cringe when you see them huddled and terrified, waiting to be saved, lacking all agency. It's racial stereotyping at it's most offensive. It's tone deaf and embarrassing.
Don't bother with this. Only Chris Evans completists need apply. And they'll leave disappointed too.
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