They claim Steven Spielbergs Munich was shot, assembled and ready for the theaters in 6 months. If that is true that is quit an accomplishment for a film that is so dense that even on my second viewing I felt as though I was still missing stuff.
The film is about the aftermath of the "Black September" or Munich Olympic murders in 1972. It stars Eric Bana as Avner, the Jewish/German son of a military hero, who feels he needs to follow in his fathers footsteps and serve Israel. The basics of the plot are simple; kill those men responsible for the Munich murders. A team is assembled under Avner and they begin their duties.
There are strokes of brilliance throughout this film, and if you need a reminder after the last Indian Jones as to just how talented Spielberg can be, rent this movie.
The men assembled to pull off this incredible task are not professionals by any means, in fact I don't think any had killed before taking on these duties. Spielberg gives us one wonderful scene after another as these men complete there missions but do it in a far from elegant manner. And in there incompetence Spilberg is able to craft these wonderfully suspenseful moments. One in particular involves a bomb a telephone and a little girl (I had seen the film before, I knew how the scene would play out, yet I was practically yelling at the TV).
The politics and rhetoric between characters as they are trying to tell us and themselves why they are doing what they are doing, bogs down the film. We don't really sympathize with the gang, but we shouldn't and Spielberg knows that, the problem with not sympathizing with them is we don't care as much about what they are doing. This is a movie full of revenge type killings, normally that is exactly the kind of thing that will keep you glued to the screen, but in seeing this movie I understand why its easier to make the antagonist do something horrible to one persons family or effect their personal life catastrophically, because then we watch with more emotional intent as they get back at their enemies. In Munich due to the subject matter and what Spielberg (correctly) is trying to accomplish, there is a sense of distance from the acts of murder. Also, Spielberg lets us and at least one person in the gang, get to briefly interact with the victims before killing them. I applaud Spielberg for all of this, because it would have been so easy just to make there be good guys and bad guys and then the killings would have no ramifications. Where this film ventures into greatness is when it starts to deal with that idea of to what end does any of this accomplish. Avnet finds himself becoming paranoid and going crazy for not only what he did but also because now he and his gang are becoming the victims. When does the cycle end!? I wish this aspect of the film had been explored more and started earlier, it was much more fascinating that listening to conversations about these moral implications.
I could go on and on about how Spielberg superbly deals with issues of family, murder, loyalty, and especially the idea of having a home, a place to call your own. What price is any of that worth? Is it worth everything? Who decides in what order?
As much deserving praise as I will heap on Spielberg for his technical savvy (this flm was beautifully shot, with a constant moving camera, zooms, it was basically shot like a 70's new hollywood film) and his amazing craftsmanship, there are a couple places where this movie keeps itself from being great. I couldn't always follow who are why certain people or things where happening. I don't understand the gangs source and how he knows all he knows, and some of the politics got heavy and confusing. As I alluded to earlier the revenge is based on the Munich Olympic killings, in which none of the men involved with getting this retribution actually saw the Munich killings occur, yet Avner keeps seeing the events of that fateful night to personalize it. I didn't buy this, and I certainly could have done without the Eric Bana sex scene as he is seeing the killings and the cutting back and forth as Bana is getting more and more angry. Spielberg didn't need to personalize the event, and I wish he hadn't of tried.
Those were all minor things, the biggest problem I had with the film was the last scene. And if Spielberg has his faults (which he does) they can be epitomized in the scene between Bana and Geofrrey Rush as they walk along the water in New York, summing up everything that we learned or were suppose to learn in the film. Spielberg needs to give his audiences more credit, he gives us a complex suspenseful thriller and then in the last three minutes has to explain the moral dilemmas that were there the whole time. Why?
This review doesn't scratch the surface of everything I would like to say about this movie, but it is getting long and I must wrap it up. To sum it up this film is like a smoothie, it has everything mixed into it, but when you turn the blender on the top pops off and you may lose some of it because you tried to pack to much.
****
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