Munich (2005)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Better Late Then Never

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

I was not expecting this kind of film for something based on historical events. It's a great assasin first with a straight forward direction that is easily followed. It also shows the tremendous toll this line of work puts on the human psyche with Eric Bana bringing in the best performance I've ever seen him portray on screen.Yet again Spielberg proves he's the master of suspense. Experiencing not only the intense moments as the play out on the edge of your seat, but feeling the same paranoia Bana experiences. For such a long film, I didn't look at the time once as it drew me in with ever bit of action and every line of dialogue! One of Spielberg's best!

This movie is based on an incident which happened in the Munich Olympics where Israeli-an athletes were killed by the Black September organization. For taking revenge against the terrorist organization Israel organizes a group of 5 people and then takes a revenge on them.There are some dialogues which support the Palestinians not making them as strong villains. In the group of 5 people each one are from different profession and how will they take revenge on them is the rest of the story.This movie story is simple but lots of complications will be going through it because the person who gives details of the terrorists will be susceptible in nature. The movie has really some strong dialogues and the scenes were real. As the movie is based on true events we will be astonished to know that these are the kind of things which are happening in the real world. No need to tell about Steven Spielberg, the master of film making. This movie is a good movie but a bit lengthy because of the running time.

Avner (Eric Bana) is a former bodyguard assigned to lead the killings of eleven men for their involvement in the Munich attacks. There's no contract because the mission doesn't "exist" which means that it will be taken care of, with Israel's 100% efficiency. And while it will profoundly affect the executioner, this is not a character study, unless you consider the psychological mindset of a whole country as a 'character'. First, I had mixed feelings regarding "Munich", but they all converged toward a positive appreciation. If there is one thing "Munich" ever proves is that Spielberg, while flawed as any human being, is a man of peace, and while it became trendy to support war and attacks in the name of patriotism, it is even more admirable to question it in the same spirit. "Munich" would be attacked on both sides, but as Spielberg pointed out, being attacked doesn't mean "being contradicted". The title refers to the hi-jacking of Israeli athletes by PLO members during the Olympic Games of 1972… and what a sneaky irony that it had to be in Germany, as if history wanted to repeat itself. The operation ended in tragedy, as eleven athletes died, to the world's shock. It was a time where Palestinians had already lost the 'communication battle'. Things would change in 1987 with the first Intifada, when kids throwing stones at Israeli tanks replaced hooded terrorists holding machine-guns, thus contributing to the first 'change of heart' in favor of the Palestinians.But in 1972, Israel was the offended country. The film is based on George Jonas' book "Vengeance" chronicling the targeted assassinations against Palestinian dignitaries accused of having pulled some of the strings that lead to 'Black September': eleven men, for eleven athletes, an "eye for an eye" move Golda Meir took all responsibility for. She personally believed that there was no time for peace. Why wouldn't they put these men on trial like Eichmann, who did far worse? Eichmann was arrested at a time where Nazism was terminated, and the new evil from the Israeli perspective was the Arabs, as long as these influential people lived, Israeli would die. What I admired in the film is that it doesn't only discuss the victims' actual responsibility in the Munich attacks but even the sheer value of their deaths, because each one brings more ruthless successors, perpetuating a never-ending cycle of violence. I expected the movie to open with the blood bath that triggered the whole chain of events, but this was ignoring what a master storyteller Spielberg is. He punctuates the film with elements of that fateful night as violent interludes reminding the viewers why Meir took that decision, the climax coinciding with the killings. But this is not manipulation, as one could accuse Spielberg of. The point is that violence is ugly and blind.Spielberg depicts each assassination with a Hitchcockian attention for details, one of them involves a bomb trapped in a phone and the biggest suspense comes when a little girl is about to answer the phone instead of her father. But for all the thrills the film provides, what struck me is the way the targets, or at least the first ones, are depicted as 'harmless' people, even sympathetic: one is an Italian-speaking poet and had just finished to translate the Arabian Nights in Italian, he's an intellectual and his involvement in Munich events has been denied, another one is a doctor and a family man, when he's interviewed, he insists that many camps were bombarded by Israel (which means that there are already people who paid the price for Munich). It seems crucial for Spielberg to shows shades of innocence in the victims or at least be indirectly vocal about the Palestinian pleas, and never without really discrediting them, and it actually pays off. When a Palestinian says that they use violence like Israel does, it also means killing innocents, it indirectly provides alibis for the target assassinations as the men killed are still less innocent than civilians. And when a PLO member discusses with Avner about the Nazi guilt, I felt this was the director of "Schindler's List" reminding the audience that no matter what they think about Jews and Arabs, it is a war for a land, not some extermination project.Now, to say that Spielberg sided with Palestinians would be too much of a stretch, but the point the screenplay (the book was adapted by Eric Roth an Tony Kuschner) is that violence can't be the solution to the problems it causes. And even at the end, when most of the men are eliminated, there's no real satisfaction or overwhelming effect, it is just about a job that had to be "done", it could have been unfair, but there's a key scene where Avner's mother says that "Israel had to be 'taken' because no one would have given it anyway'. At least, both sides would agree on that. Served by a great cast: Eric Bana, Geoffrey Rush, Daniel Craig and Mathieu Kassovitz "Munich" explores the dark corners one country could be driven into, in order to "make a point", and it is very fitting that there's a part played by Michael Lionsdale because he starred in my favorite political thriller "The Day of the Jackal", and "Munich" is perhaps the closest that come to that level of documentary-like gritty realism. I didn't need to wish De Gaulle's death to somewhat 'root' for the Jackal, so I guess even an Arab could be fascinated by the level of organization put to avenge eleven athletes. Maybe admitting that there's a lot to learn from the 'other side' can be a first step toward a reconciliation, but one of the tragedies Arab people must deal with, is that there's no Spielberg's counterpart in the Arab world, to the point that it took a Spielberg film so people could hear their voices.

Steven Spielberg has made a lot of good historical dramas in his career. "Bridge of Spies" and "Saving Private Ryan" were both excellent, and "Schindler's List" is the best movie I've ever seen. I was looking forward to watching this movie, but unfortunately I was let down."Munich" follows a group of Israelis who are tasked with hunting down and killing the terrorists of Black September who were responsible for the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Olympic Games.To make a historical drama good, you need one of two things. You either need an interesting historical figure to base the movie around, or you need an interesting historical event that's on-screen progression will enthrall people. "Bridge of Spies" and "Schindler's List" had both of these elements. "Munich" has neither.The characters in the movie are all interchangeable with one another and have no real personality. The five members of Eric Bana's team are all the same person, except they each have a different skill.The historical story chosen doesn't have anything of interest happening in it either. It is just a typical revenge story. Even more detrimental, it does not feel like there is a satisfactory conclusion to the story. It just isn't a very interesting piece of history to make into a three hour long movie. A better piece of history to focus on would have been the actual Munich massacre instead of the aftermath.While this is a bad historical drama, I can not say in good conscious that is a bad movie. The movie is well written, well shot, well acted, and well directed for the most part. There is one scene where the way it was put together was confusing. The only technical aspect that was bad was the lighting, as every scene was saturated with light and looked ugly.There are a lot of good historical dramas out there, and a lot of good ones made by Steven Spielberg. This is not one of them.