The terrorist siege at the 1972 Olympics in Munich is a regrettable part of history. Steven Spielberg’s film Munich is not about the hostage situation initiated by the terrorist cell known as Black September which left 11 Israeli – Jewish – athletes dead, though it does cover the incident on gory, horrible details in occasional flashbacks to remind us and supposedly justify the rest of the film.
Munich is about the rumoured ‘based on true events’ (whatever that means) clean up job that saw the Israeli leaders commission a small team to hunt down those responsible for the killings.
The leader of the crew is Avner (Eric Bana), an ex-Mossad operative with the implicit trust of those in charge. Avner is initially told no details aside from it is all hush-hush and could see him away from the family for a very long time. Avner is given a night to mull over the decision, which weighs heavily given his wife is pregnant and soon to give birth to their first child.
After he agrees Avner is told he is to be in charge of 4 other men, some of whom have never been soldiers, and that the quintet are to go off the books and under the radar, eradicating the men responsible for the incident using any means necessary. Any knowledge of the team is denied by Israel, and any deaths of team members merely an unfortunate by-product of reprisals.
As months go on the team starts slowly, finding contacts to locate the whereabouts of targets and also items to use to deal with them once found. They swiftly learn that bombs, explosive and trained killers are all equally volatile, and tensions within the team and the few officials ‘in the know’ rise to combustible levels.
As the team criss-crosses Europe and eventually the Arab nations it becomes evident that they are equally in danger, because if you can find them there is a fair chance they can find you. Every car is a suspect, every glance reason for concern.
It might be ridiculous for me to second-guess all time great Steven Spielberg, but I felt Munich was for long sections clumsy and a little full of its own supposed importance, especially given it is only ‘inspired by true events’. The finale in particular made me laugh at the supposed gravity of it all, and I only laughed in disbelief so that I didn’t have to say ‘Come ON, Mr Spielberg, that’s a bit much!”
Ultimately the tale of what may have happened in the wake of the 72 terrorist acts deserves to be told – the re-enactments of the siege and bloody conclusion are especially vivid and unsettling – but this film is just too heavy handed and pushy for me to fully engage.
Final Rating – 6 / 10. I am fine with a film not being especially enjoyable if I learn something, but what we are told here seems force-fed, and in truth as the 2 ½ hours ground along to the silly conclusion I often lost interest.
I don’t like to be bludgeoned into something – regardless of how important – by guilt and events that may or may not have happened the way they are laid out.
