Munich (A- or 3.5/4 stars)
Steven Spielberg almost achieves masterpiece status with 'Munich', a thriller inspired by real events that occurred during the 1972 Munich Olympics. The world knows that several Israeli athletes from the 1972 Games were taken hostage & murdered by 11 members of Palestine's Black September group. 'Munich' lets us in to what happens 'after' this event. A re-enactment of the taking of the hostages is shown, followed by the mass media rush by all news reporters around the world (including the late Peter Jennings). Information about the event is being spewed at you in record time & it takes several minutes to digest everything. After a well-directed scene in which Golda Meir (Lynn Cohen) recruits Avner (Eric Bana), an old bodyguard of hers, to lead the Mossad (a secret Israeli revenge group), the movie falls into place & the real magic begins. Meir says, quite plainly, "Forget peace now".
She instructs Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush) to oversee this group who will assassinate each & every one of those men responsible for the Israeli murders in Munich; at almost any cost. Avner & his group, Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz), a toymaker-turned-bomb disarmer-turned-bomb maker, Steve (Daniel Craig), the trigger man, Carl (Ciaran Hinds), a remover of post-assassination evidence, & Hans (Hanns Zischler), forgerer of documents, set out on a series of exciting, spine-tingling assassinations that made you feel like you were right along with them for the task. Avner discovers the names of his assassins by paying money to a middle man named Louis (Mathieu Amalric). But as the stakes rise, so does the price for having the all-important names of the Black September group.
Avner becomes more & more invested in the killings as they go. He loosens up & feels freer as each 'bad man' is extinguished. However, when members of his own group get killed, and when he wallows in self-pity & anger at the fact that he is missing his baby daughter grow up, and when he comes full circle & believes he has no more allies, the movie gets very dark and we're forced to decide, with him, what is right & what is wrong. How much is getting accomplished by these assassinations if newer, braver, stronger enemies supplant the dead ones? "If our enemies do wrong, do we have the right to counteract?"
The movie is at its best when Avner's group is compiling names, information, & assassination methods. The intensity of each scene where the group has to complete these assassinations is realistically horrific. One of the best scenes occurs when the group is trying to kill a Black Septemberist in Paris. Just when they think the man will answer his phone (in doing so, setting off a bomb), his innocent daughter answers it for him and mass chaos ensues as Avner & Hans run desperately to prevent Robert from imploding the phone -- my pulse races even thinking about it. There's another great set of scenes where Avner's men and a Palestinian Liberation team are booked for the same 'safe house'. Avner & his men get by, not revealing that they, themselves, are Jews. There is even a comical scene that breaks some tension in which 2 men from both groups fight over a radio in deciding which song to play.
But some things about the movie don't quite add up; just shy of being a masterpiece. I often found myself thinking, 'What's the significance of that scene? How is this pertinent & continuous with the theme?' It is almost as if Spielberg has too much to say & doesn't quite know how to fit it all within the narrative. The energy surrounding the assassination attempts is excellent. The film has moments of urgency. The denouement is anti-climactic & almost 'weird', for lack of a more fitting term. That said, the last visual on screen is the most effective part of the entire movie, without a doubt.
How Eric Bana is neither nominated for nor declared winner of any major awards, is beyond me. Every actor here is great; believable. But Bana lends an entirely gripping, emotional performance. I do not dispute that Philip Seymour Hoffman is superb in Capote, and Heath Ledger is astounding in Brokeback Mountain, but I would nearly place Bana in the same category as the latter two; very, very impressed with this man.
'Munich' shows a great love for Israel, but it also shows that no one country is good, not all allies are honest, & not all assumed enemies are bad people. Spielberg shows that whether it is 1972, 1,000 years ago, or 2006 ... war continues. Patterns won't be broken, bad men will forever be replaced, thousands of innocent lives will be lost, & no land will belong to anyone completely. He uses terror, ethical arguments & self-inner-conflict to show the endless violence of our world today. Spielberg lays the foundation for a great movie-going experience. This film is a must-see; the cinematography, production design, & knack for making us feel like we were transported back to '72 is unparalleled. It isn't quite perfect. But then, what is?
She instructs Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush) to oversee this group who will assassinate each & every one of those men responsible for the Israeli murders in Munich; at almost any cost. Avner & his group, Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz), a toymaker-turned-bomb disarmer-turned-bomb maker, Steve (Daniel Craig), the trigger man, Carl (Ciaran Hinds), a remover of post-assassination evidence, & Hans (Hanns Zischler), forgerer of documents, set out on a series of exciting, spine-tingling assassinations that made you feel like you were right along with them for the task. Avner discovers the names of his assassins by paying money to a middle man named Louis (Mathieu Amalric). But as the stakes rise, so does the price for having the all-important names of the Black September group.
Avner becomes more & more invested in the killings as they go. He loosens up & feels freer as each 'bad man' is extinguished. However, when members of his own group get killed, and when he wallows in self-pity & anger at the fact that he is missing his baby daughter grow up, and when he comes full circle & believes he has no more allies, the movie gets very dark and we're forced to decide, with him, what is right & what is wrong. How much is getting accomplished by these assassinations if newer, braver, stronger enemies supplant the dead ones? "If our enemies do wrong, do we have the right to counteract?"
The movie is at its best when Avner's group is compiling names, information, & assassination methods. The intensity of each scene where the group has to complete these assassinations is realistically horrific. One of the best scenes occurs when the group is trying to kill a Black Septemberist in Paris. Just when they think the man will answer his phone (in doing so, setting off a bomb), his innocent daughter answers it for him and mass chaos ensues as Avner & Hans run desperately to prevent Robert from imploding the phone -- my pulse races even thinking about it. There's another great set of scenes where Avner's men and a Palestinian Liberation team are booked for the same 'safe house'. Avner & his men get by, not revealing that they, themselves, are Jews. There is even a comical scene that breaks some tension in which 2 men from both groups fight over a radio in deciding which song to play.
But some things about the movie don't quite add up; just shy of being a masterpiece. I often found myself thinking, 'What's the significance of that scene? How is this pertinent & continuous with the theme?' It is almost as if Spielberg has too much to say & doesn't quite know how to fit it all within the narrative. The energy surrounding the assassination attempts is excellent. The film has moments of urgency. The denouement is anti-climactic & almost 'weird', for lack of a more fitting term. That said, the last visual on screen is the most effective part of the entire movie, without a doubt.
How Eric Bana is neither nominated for nor declared winner of any major awards, is beyond me. Every actor here is great; believable. But Bana lends an entirely gripping, emotional performance. I do not dispute that Philip Seymour Hoffman is superb in Capote, and Heath Ledger is astounding in Brokeback Mountain, but I would nearly place Bana in the same category as the latter two; very, very impressed with this man.
'Munich' shows a great love for Israel, but it also shows that no one country is good, not all allies are honest, & not all assumed enemies are bad people. Spielberg shows that whether it is 1972, 1,000 years ago, or 2006 ... war continues. Patterns won't be broken, bad men will forever be replaced, thousands of innocent lives will be lost, & no land will belong to anyone completely. He uses terror, ethical arguments & self-inner-conflict to show the endless violence of our world today. Spielberg lays the foundation for a great movie-going experience. This film is a must-see; the cinematography, production design, & knack for making us feel like we were transported back to '72 is unparalleled. It isn't quite perfect. But then, what is?