Munich - 8th February 2006

To be honest, I was expecting something a lot more one-dimensional; a lot more 'Hollywood', from Monsieur Spielberg. Maybe I was doing him a discredit, as the film managed to be extremely engaging, mostly since it let the viewer make up his or her own mind.

Now I didn't really know much about this specific incident. Of course that wasn't really necessary, it wasn't a film about one incident and its aftermath but the enormous grey area that exists within the realms of nationalism, religion and revenge. And naturally, although the film was set in the 1970s, the above themes are oh so relevant in today's world.

It was a rather brave choice to portray a terrorist as the main character, and such a sympathetic one as well. Eric Bana was almost an Everyman (note the wife and kid, to remind us he was just a normal bloke) and never seemed particularly fervent in his belief or his mission; he was always able to coolly and calmly rationalise his actions. This goes against the tendancy of some to characterise terrorists as half-crazed fundamentalists.

I particularly liked the way with which the actual Munich incident was dealt. It was neutral, we had no character as a point of reference. We learnt what was happening mostly through actual TV footage, which made it all the more chilling and could be seen as an acute commentary on the sensational reporting of war. Quite amusing when one of the terrorists, after seeing himself on TV, exclaimed 'Hey, we're movie stars', or something similar.

Despite all the deep stuff, Munich could equally be enjoyed as a traditional action movie. It moved along quickly, each separate bombing was carefully planned and executed and it was all pretty exciting stuff. As the film went on, however, and our main character got more and more disillusioned with his mission, the narrative jumped around a bit more. Great swathes of time passed without any comment. People died and were replaced, the never-ending vicious circle of revenge was being brought into question...

However, it went on about half an hour too long. They should have ended the film with our man being debriefed, emotionless, in that blinding white light. Instead he went to New York, had some dinner, went for a walk and arsed around for what seemed no point whatsoever.

I also enjoyed the fact it had Manni in it off of Lola Rennt.

It gets points for exceeding my expectations and actually being quite intelligent without being sanctimonious. However it loses some for going on too long and dragging a lot towards the end. So: 7.