One of the most odd, innovative films I’ve seen. “New” composer John Adams wrote this opera years ago and it is filmed like a real movie — on an actual ocean liner and on locations that double for Israel/Palestine. All the dialogue is sung, and sung like a “new opera,” which makes this both fascinating and irritating. Unfortunately, I don’t have much taste for this kind of music — it all sounds like recitative to me. Scenes in flashback are sung by a chorus and those are chilling. The screenplay does its best to show “both sides” of the Achille Lauro highjacking — though one will always fall short trying to make terrorists who shoot an innocent man in a wheelchair sympathetic, no matter how many black and white images of a razed village are seen. Interesting film, 80% bad music.