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Amazon.co.uk Review
Munich is a film with no easy answers, and plenty of uncomfortable moments. It also finds Steven Spielberg on masterly form behind the camera, telling a relentlessly serious and unsettling story with the gravitas it absolutely requires.
Set immediately after the murder of nine Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics (an event that’s brutally re-enacted), the film is supposedly a fictionalised account based on true events of what happened next. Namely, the Israelis ordering together a secret team--led by Eric Bana’s Avner--to take out those they considered responsible.
Only it’s not that easy. It doesn’t take long for the film to start blurring the moral debate. Is what Avner and his team are doing that different from the original assassins? Can he reconcile the brutality of his actions? And what happens when the programme of retaliation doesn’t go quite to plan?
By turns, Munich is a brutal, gripping and important film. It’s not always easy to penetrate, and it really demands some good old-fashioned concentration to fully appreciate it. Yet it’s superb filmmaking, and an engrossing piece of cinema. Oscar may have snubbed it, but you’d be wise not to make the same mistake.--Jon Foster
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The tragedy of violence,
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This review is from: Munich [DVD] (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.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A film that needs more than one viewing...,
By
This review is from: Munich [DVD] (DVD)
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.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Charismatic acting and Godfatheresque violence,
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This review is from: Munich [DVD] (DVD)
This is an epic examination of the morality of vengeance. While I was watching it I had a thought that the only way to be truly loyal to your country is to stand up against its excesses and corrupt behaviour. Working for your Government will inevitably involve you in compromising situations. I had a friend who worked for the Foreign Office during the Iraq war. He supported it, I didn't. Where is justice? Should he not be removed from his post and go to prison? The waging of the Iraq war was a betrayal of our country. It resulted in the murder of thousands of innocent civilians. These are the sort of complex moral issues that arise when you ponder the implications of Governments acting above the law.
The most moving bit was when the bomber said that as a Jew it was his morality that mattered. It's not about getting even, it's about showing an example to the rest of the world. The strength of any nation is not its aggressive acts, it must be something to do with its cultural or moral contribution to the world. Spielberg, for example, has made an immense contribution through the film industry. I liked the lavish entertainment values of the film and the different characters, it engaged me throughout.
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