Munich

After having such big critical hits with Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, it was really only a matter of time before Steven Spielberg tried his hand at another big piece of juicy oscar-bait to release between the more regular popcorn movies that allow him to add extra wings to his mansion. Munich is another deep, 'worthy' film from the king of Hollywood - this time combining the Jewness of Schindler's List with the senselessness of war from Saving Private Ryan. The end result is an altogether unaffecting film that wants to be powerful and important but remains decidedly average for a Spielberg 'event' movie.

Avner (Eric Bana) is a low profile member of Mossad, the Israeli equivelant of MI6 or the CIA. Following the devastating massacre of the Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Munich Olympics, courtesy of a Palestinian extremist organisation calling itself Black September, Avner finds himself heading up a top secret crack squad sent into Europe to exact retribution upon the men who helped make the massacre a reality. All his ties with Israel and Mossad are cut off to allow for zero accountability, and he and his team become a black angel of revenge, tracking down and assassinating pro-Palestinian extremists for many years. At first they are careful to only hit their targets, but as their actions begin to fuel reactions from the other side they come to realise that the collateral damage they will experience cannot be controlled and so they cease to be so careful. This is covert espionage fully amplified and the resulting desperation makes for dangerous opponents and unwinnable conflicts, and Avner's team will most likely be the ultimate casualty.

Munich is a film that takes an infamous but short event and expands it's scope into something epic and not entirely factual. It's obvious from the outset that Spielberg wants to explore themes of endless retaliation and how the politics of revenge are inherently hypocritical and detrimental. Avner becomes a willing pawn for his country, and he ultimately (and predictably) sacrifices his soul to carry out his task. Unfortunately though, these themes all become redundant due to Spielberg's own Jewish agenda - after he explores both sides of the fence, even allowing some Palestinian characters to say their piece in some scenes set in Greece, he inevitably seems to posit that the price for an Israeli homeland can never be too high. At one point, he even has Louis (Mathieu Amalric), a rather important character who (unlike Avner) has no delusions about the ammorality of the game they play, say "It costs - but a home always does". It's like Spielberg is saying, "Here are some opposing viewpoints about the whole thing. It's a complex issue. But the Jews are still right", which ultimately flies in the face of what the film superficially seems to be saying.

Also, at the end of the day Spielberg is just too much of a showman to treat this subject with any real depth. Compare Munich to Syriana, another film that deals with complex issues in the Middle East, and it's like holding up a rather pretty crayon drawing next to the Mona Lisa, or even like comparing this crude review I'm writing to someone's novel-length thesis on Israeli-Palestinian politics. Spielberg simply aims to hit emotional, dramatic and action-orientated marks rather than explore any real issues or ethics. He tries to boil the film's core down into Avner's character development, but it fails because there's no real meat to it. It's like this... Avner decides to go kill Palestinians for Israel, Avner kills Palestinians for Israel, Avner feels bad for killing Palestinians for Israel, the end. It also certainly doesn't help that Eric Bana has virtually no screen presence in almost anything he does (the sole exception being Chopper). One ridiculous scene has him reminiscing about the Munich Massacre (which he never actually saw) whilst having sex with his wife and then he starts screaming and wigging out. It isn't clear if either of them reach orgasm or not. Spielberg even tacks on a groan-worthy panaromic shot of 1970s New York that includes the Twin Towers in all their glory as a final dramatic full stop. It might've been affective if Martin Scorcese hadn't done the exact same thing three years earlier in Gangs of New York.

Don't get me wrong, most of the time I'm actually quite a fan of Steven Spielberg. His 80s output is unmatched in 'classic' status and Catch Me If You Can is hugely underrated. Almost all of his films are uniformly entertaining at the very least, but Munich feels so much like he wants to recapture his Oscar glory from Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan that I couldn't help but feel like he'd short-changed himself. He apparently made Munich in a big rush, shooting it and releasing in a meagre 6 months, just so it would be out in time to be eligible for the Oscars. It got nominated for 5, but won none. Was it really worth it, Steven? Imagine if you had spent more time on it and not worried about eligibility for awards, imagine if you crafted something a bit more considerate and thematically sound? Imagine if you hadn't settled for Eric Bana. At the very least it's interesting to see Spielberg's take on the twilight world of espionage and it's shifting alliances, but overall I found this movie very disappointing.

DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth. Based on a non-fiction novel by George Jonas.
KEY ACTORS: Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Ciaran Hinds, Geoffrey Rush, Michael Lonsdale, Mathieu Amalric

RELATED TEXTS:
- The book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team, a non-fiction work written by George Jonas in 1984 about Operation Wrath of God as carried out by Mossad.
Documentaries about Palestinian terrorism include Our Greatest Hopes Our Worst Fears, American Experience: Hijacked and One Day in September. Another documentary that seeks to address the imbalance of media coverage when it comes to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is Waltz with Bashir.
- The same events in Munich were covered in a 1986 TV movie called Sword of Gideon, starring Rod Steiger and Michael York.
- 21 Hours at Munich also deals with the same subject matter but primarily covers the events at the 1972 Olympics.
- The 1970s action film Black Sunday also draws inspiration from the same events.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated Best Film, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing and Best Original Music.
AFIs - nominated Best Actor (Eric Bana)
Golden Globes - nominated Best Director and Best Screenplay.