Dir. Steven Spielberg, US, 2005, 164 mins
Cast: Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Geoffrey Rush
In September 1972 an extremist Palestinian terrorist group calling itself Black September invaded the Olympic village in Munich, killing two member of the Israeli Olympic team and capturing nine hostages, all of whom ultimately died in a botched rescue attempt played out in front of the world's television cameras. Although taking its title from those events, this film is not about the Munich tragedy as such but the secret retribution carried out afterwards by a team of Israeli intelligence assassins, whose existence is denied by their government. Based largely on the book "Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team," by George Jonas, whose veracity is hotly disputed in some quarters, the film has caused considerable controversy in the United States and in Israel.
Surprisingly for a Spielberg film - he is after all one of the world's master film storytellers -I found the first half of the film rather unengaging. The ironic opening works well, with helpful American athletes helping the terrorists into the village, believing them to be non-English-speaking athletes who've got locked out, but we don’t get the full horror of what happens until much later in the film, when it is recalled through the troubled thoughts and nightmares of Avner (Bana), leader of the hit squad. As a result anyone who is unfamiliar with what happened in Munich may well at first not understand the strength of the Israeli reaction. We learn a little about Avner and his pregnant wife, it's interesting seeing Golda Meir (Lynn Cohen) turning her persuasive powers on the initially reluctant Avner and the coldly professional Mossad case officer Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush) briefing him. The four other members of the international assassination team, when we meet them, are also a potentially interesting group - tough South African Steve (Daniel Craig); Carl (Ciaran Hinds), a methodically dependable pipe-smoking Israeli, German antiques dealer and document forger Hans (Hanns Zischler); and Belgian toy maker turned explosives expert Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz). Good though the actors are, the script gives them little opportunity at this point to go very deeply into their characters, so we have five men we don’t know very well committing a series of assassinations on various other men about whom we also know very little in various, sometimes exotic locations. It all seems a bit arbitrary and emptily violent, with no real dramatic tension or suspense, no exciting investigation and trail. Despite the fact that Spielberg is Jewish, the film certainly doesn’t balk at the ruthlessness of the Israeli action. And the question which kept rising in my mind was, with all this bloodshed going on, why do we see no sign of the local police in all the various countries? There are, though, moments of inspired humanity and dramatic irony, as in the scene where Avner and his next victim converse amicably on a narrow hotel balcony in Cyprus to the sounds of an amorous couple in the next room, while Avner knows that when his companion goes back into his room, the bomb he has set under the bed will explode. There is also very little humour to lighten the load, apart from an Israeli official insisting on written receipts from the team for all expenditure - under the circumstances a somewhat unrealistic demand.
However, in the second half things take a turn for the better with the appearance of Michel Lonsdale as a sort of French godfather figure, who sells them information about their potential victims' whereabouts. An ostensibly urbane and cultured man, who conducts his business in the midst of an enormous family party in the grounds of his château, you can sense the dangerous ruthlessness and unpredictability, which lurks beneath his civilized veneer. It is around here that the film becomes very good, as the gang of five's belief in what they are doing starts to disintegrate, and they realise that, as they cut off one head as it were, another one grows. At last we start to find out who they all are as men. The tension winds up as the moral issues come to the fore, and when the assassins are then themselves picked off one by one, some real edge of the seat suspense develops. And the final inconclusive duologue between Avner and his Ephraim set against the New York skyline, which contains the moral heart of the film, is splendid.
One of the things that must have upset the Israelis is the film's message, that violence only begets further violence and that implicitly the Israelis made the wrong decision. One of the things that could be upsetting many Americans is the further implication that America's handling today of the perceived terrorist threat and the invasion of Iraq is a repetition of that same mistaken course of action.
Carol Allen
Discuss this film here
Universal Pictures have announced the UK Region 2 DVD release of Munich for 12th June 2006. Steven Spielberg’s latest effort garnered five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Features include:
- 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
- English DD5.1 Surround
- English, Icelandic and Arabic subtitles
- Introduction by Steven Spielberg
- Munich: The Team, The Mission featurette
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