Munich [DVD]

As other reviewers have said, this is a profound and engaging film that appeals to both your head and heart. I won't repeat the plot, but it does a fine job of making both the Israelis and their targets human, fallible and empathetic. And in this lies the true tragedy of the middle east: that a man who can spent his time translating the Arabian Nights into Italian can also be a 'terrorist'.

In lots of ways I found this a difficult film to watch and that's as it should be. The violence, when it comes, is always profoundly shocking, as is the human cost. The deterioration of the moral sense is captured perfectly. But beyond all, the final question that the film poses is what should we do? Does condoning violence only serve to exacerbate it? If retribution only does the same then where are we to turn?

It reminded me in some ways of Sophocles' dramas, particularly Antigone where there is no right or wrong solution, only people caught up in impossible situations where the end-point is always death. And yet the very humanity in the struggle to negotiate the moral maze is itself hopeful and I think that's where Spielberg succeeds in leaving this film. So overall a very intense experience but one very worthwhile.

I think that people will look back on Steven Spielberg's career in years to come and wonder why this film didn't merit the reaction of some of Spielberg's other "historical epics". It's a good old-fashioned thriller in many aspects, except that this is a plausible semi-factual account of the search for the terrorists behind Black September and the Munich massacres.

The premise is relatively simple, a group is put together, all of them specialists and all of them put under cover by Mossad to seek out and kill the gunmen that escaped from Munich after the 1972 killings of Israeli athletes and coaches at the Munich Olympics on 6th September 1972. However, Spielberg never gets too involved in the "rights" and "wrongs" of this story - you know that he feels sympathy for the innocents who were killed, but he also appears to feel sympathy for both the Israeli and Arab terrorists as people, if not for the bloodshed caused by them.

Spielberg seems to want you to see these men and women capable of murder and of being real human beings at the same time. He never excuses their behaviour - given his own ethnicity, I would have assumed that he would, but he doesn't - and he makes the characters so real and sometimes even warm that you almost forget what they are capable of.

And this is the skill and probably the point of the story, you can never quite forget that they are also murderers. Eric Bana, as he often does, brings another dimension to his character, Avner, and the other lead characters (including the often criticised Daniel Craig - his accent wasn't THAT bad) also show you sides to what otherwise could have been portayed as cold-blooded terrorists.

But it is two French actors who I think deserve special mention: Mathieu Kassovitz who plays Robert, a toy-maker turned bomb-maker and Mathieu Amalric who plays Louis, a "fixer" who works for all of the special and secret service agencies, it seems. Both give wonderful performances.

Finally, Spielberg again pushes the emotional buttons at all points, dropping into the film reconstructions of the terrible events which triggered the events of the film: the massacres at the Olympics. Without even the slightest hint of docu-drama about it, you see the lookalike actors play out the events of that day without the slightest bit of tackiness. It perfectly underlines the tragedy of the whole situation.

Spielberg's modern masterpiece, then, definitely is worth watching. But I have to say on watching it a second and third time, I picked up on so much more detail and I would urge anyone, Spielberg fan or not, to watch it.

This is not, as the title suggests, a film which focusses on the terrorist attack which killed a large part of the Israeli team at the 1972 Olympic games. This event is featured only at the opening of the film, and later in short flashbacks. One member of the Olympic team is even played by his own son.

This is the semi-fictional story of an Israeli hit squad assembled to carry out revenge assassinations of targets across western Europe. The result is absorbing and convincing. Early 70's Israel and multiple European locations are recreated with glorious attention to detail; with accurate interiors, clothes and street scenes packed with period cars, lending the film and almost documentary feel at times.

The subject of assassination is treated with emotional realism too. The essentially civilised Israelis, all with 'normal' day jobs, although utterly convinced of their purpose find themselves increasingly traumatised by the murders they carry out, often against targets who appear quite harmless and decent, and frequently endangering the lives of innocent bystanders.

This is a film about the nature of political violence and its ultimate futility. There is a clear subtext which refers to the present-day post 9/11 situation and the 'war on terror'. This reveals itself, perhaps a little clumsily, in the closing shot of the film.

Overall, an excellent film, though with some weak spots. In particular, a sub-plot concerning a mysterious French mafia family, from which the agents buy information about their targets. This seems contrived and detracts from the otherwise successful realism of the rest of the story.