365+ Movies In 365 Days: Day 348 - Munich

Steven Spielberg repeated his double header release pattern in 2005. For July he released a remake of the sci-fi classic War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise. (I watched War Of The Worlds on day 33 and you can see my review here. 365+ Movies in 365 Days: Day 33 _War Of The Worlds) and then in December 2005 he released Munich.

Munich is about the Black September terrorist attach on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics and the aftermath. It is Spielberg's most controversial film. many saw it as a condemnation on Israeli instead of a commentary of the fruitless cycle of violence that has gone on for decades. In making Munich Spielberg was commenting on the escalation of violence in every struggle and how it never leads to peace. he was also drawing a line directly from the mid-east trouble in the latter half of the 20th century to the attack on 9/11.

The film stars Eric Bana as Avner Kaufman, a Mossad agent, and the man assigned with leading the group that is charged with killing all the Black September members involved in the Munich massacre. Daniel Craig, Ciaran Hinds, Mathieu Kassovitz and Hanns Zischler play the rest of the members of the Israeli hit squad. Geoffrey Rush is Ephraim, Avner's contact inside Isreali.

The film is a designed as a thriller as the hit team tracks down the various Black September members using information purchased from a mysterious French man named Louis (Mathieu Amalric) and his papa (Micheal Lonsdale) a former French resistance fighter.

Avner and his team soon realize they are being hunted because some one is selling information about them. As the killings escalate so does Avner's paranoia and realization that blood begets more blood and that retribution does not seem to be the solution.

As a thriller the film works. the pacing is excellent and there are a number of edge of your seat moments. There is one scene where Avner is making love while he envisions the massacre at Munich that I felt didn't work. It felt forced trying to combine violence and sex. Is he having flashbacks or memories of the event? How could he, he was not there? Throughout the movie with the use of flashbacks we have seen the events at the Olympics take place, but the interjection of the final murders at this juncture felt manipulative.

I won't argue the controversy or politics of the film. See it and decide for yourself. But, whether you agree or disagree it is still a film worth seeing.

At The Movie House rating ***1/2 stars