MUNICH (2005)
Direction: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Eric Bana, Geoffrey Rush, Daniel Craig, Mathieu Kassovitz, Ciaran Hinds, Hanns Zischler, Ayelet Zurer, Michel Lonsdale, Gila Almagor, Mathieu Amalric, Moritz Bleibtreu, Marie-Josée Croze, Lynn Cohen, Omar Metwally, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
Screenplay: Tony Kushner and Eric Roth; from George Jonas' book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team
Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Ciaran Hinds, Hanns Zischler, Mathieu Kassovitz, Munich
Alternately intriguing and irritating, thought-provoking and banal, subtle and patronizing, the biggest surprise about Steven Spielberg's Munich is that it — however grudgingly — works. The film, which Spielberg himself has referred to as a "prayer for peace," follows five men contracted by Israel to avenge the massacre of that country's athletes during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Sizable chunks of this action thriller with a Message (yes, capital "M") are simplistically written, clumsily acted, and handled with the director's notoriously heavy touch, but the old adage — blood begets more blood — even if somewhat muddled, is too timely not to make an impact.
Based on George Jonas' 1984 book Vengeance, whose veracity has been questioned in some quarters, Munich begins as members of the Palestinian terrorist organization Black September gain access to the unguarded Olympic village and, after murdering two Israelis, take nine others as hostages. Following a 16-hour standoff, the terrorists demand safe passage, with their hostages, to Cairo. They are taken to a military airport where a West German squad botches a rescue operation so badly that all hostages are slaughtered by the Palestinians.
Enter Israeli prime minister Golda Meir (Lynn Cohen), who, with the support of the Israeli military and secret service, decides that Israel must avenge those deaths to discourage terrorists from killing more innocent Israeli civilians. "Every civilization," she explains, "finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values." Avner (Eric Bana), a Mossad agent whose wife is about to have a baby, is chosen to lead this mission on European soil, where the alleged Black September masterminds dwell.
With the help of a young French informant-for-hire, Louis (Mathieu Amalric), and his shadowy haut bourgeois father, known simply as Papa (Michael Lonsdale), Avner finds the whereabouts of his Arab targets. Thus, he and four other recruits — German document-forger Hans (Hanns Zischler), Belgian bombmaker Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz), South-African hitman Steve (steely-eyed Daniel Craig), and Israeli evidence-sweeper Carl (Ciaran Hinds) — begin a murder spree in European capitals that accomplishes its objectives all too well. That is, notwithstanding a few minor inconveniences such as "collateral damage" and the fact that each time one of the alleged terror masterminds dies, another even more bloodthirsty leader steps in to take his place. Indeed, as the agents proceed with their work the number of terrorist attacks in Europe increase dramatically in direct response to the assassinations. "Europe," remarks Louis, "hasn't been this interesting since Napoleon marched into Moscow."
Spielberg, I may add, hasn't been this interesting since Jaws thirty years ago. Beginning in the mid-1980s, the director then known as a sort of overgrown, bearded adolescent has been making a series of self-important (and, I admit, generally well-regarded) movies meant to prove that he is capable of dealing with Serious Issues. But as far as I'm concerned, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Schindler's List, Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, and A.I. have only served to prove that Spielberg is a technically proficient director, one utterly incapable of recreating and maintaining truth on screen for more than a few minutes per film. With Munich, however, that has finally changed.
Now, that is not to say that Munich is flawless. Much to the contrary. The film suffers from an excess of repetitive situations, several bits of dismally flat humor (including, not surprisingly, a ludicrous ode to the unifying power of American pop culture), loads of stilted speechifying about tribal homelands and the true meaning of Jewishness, and that most pernicious of the director's vices: gooey family moments.
Spielberg also makes a number of poor cinematic choices, the worst of which is a pointless crosscutting sequence that juxtaposes the massacre of the Israeli athletes with Avner having sexual intercourse with his wife. But most importantly, Spielberg and screenwriters Tony Kushner and Eric Roth display an unsettling ambivalence about ethical and unethical behavior that is both Munich's greatest asset and its greatest handicap. (Kushner, I should add, won a Pulitzer for the politically charged play Angels in America; Roth won an Oscar for the politically challenged film Forrest Gump.)