The Skyjacker's Tale Film Analysis

The Skyjacker’s Tale

Synopsis

Documentarian Jamie Kastner put together a film that depicts the circumstances relating to the hijacking of American Airline Flight in 1984 by Ishmael Muslim Ali, a.k.a. Ishmael LaBeet.
Using interviews, reenactments, and news coverage, the documentary covers events preceding and proceeding the highjacking including the Fountain Valley Massacre and Ishmael LaBeet’s current situation in Cuba.

The film starts by telling the story of the hijacking that took place on a AA flight from NY to St. Croix. LaBeet, a prisoner, is being transferred from a courthouse in St. Croix back to jail in New York. He somehow manages to get his hands on a gun in the bathroom, takes control of the plane including passengers and the cockpit. He makes the pilot re-route the plane to Cuba in order to avoid extradition.

The film then attempts to add context to the story by providing a background on the events that took place in St. Croix that led to LaBeet to being locked up. The premise of the event is that the VI were taken over by the US, resulting in a lot of continental Americans using the VI for their vacationing including building golf courses mainly for tourists. One of these golf courses, built by the Rockefeller family, was where the

LaBeet comes across as a charismatic freedom fighter who you almost root for. He was even able to get a detective admitting to torturous interview methods on camera. He did well to explain the race and independence situation in VI and America, showing sound-bites from real people with real views at that time. I do not know if his intention was to make the audience sympathize with LaBeet, but after the hijacking scene and by the end of the movie, I felt that while he made bad choices, he definitely made points that I found agreeable. He was dubbed the “Most Polite Hijacker”, so maybe he just is