Munich, directed by Steven Spielberg, fictionalizes the real life terrorist situation that occurred during the 1972 Munich Olympics, when a number of Palestinians infiltrated the Olympic Village and took a bunch of Israeli athletes hostage. Since it was the 1970s, before police had their shit together, the hostage-takers were able to secure bus transport to the airport, to a waiting jet liner. There were no pilots on board though, and in the ensuing and incredibly-inept ambush by the German authorities, most of the terrorists were killed and three were taken prisoner, but not before they machine gunned down all of the hostages.
These events are related very early in the film, the meat of which is about a hit squad formed by the Israeli government and sent to kill the 11 men who allegedly planned the terrorist strike. They're not at all what you expect a super-trained killing team to be, and they're in fact pretty damn incompetent. The movie takes place over a couple of years, as the team slowly hunts down the terrorists, while growing increasingly-weary and losing confidence in the use of what they're doing.
To the scores:
Munich, 2005
Script/Story: 6
Acting/Casting: 7
Action: 7
Combat Realism: 8
Humor: 4
Horror: 5
Eye Candy: 6
Fun Factor: 3
Must See on the Big Screen: 1
Replayability: 5
Overall: 7
Munich is a quality film, but it's not a very fun one. It's well-written, well-acted, well-directed, and I wasn't bored, but I was never really excited or thrilled or involved in the plot, which made it a somewhat cold viewing experience. Spielberg worked hard to make the story balanced; and while it's not (it's very pro-Israel, or at least anti-Palestinian), it's not a complete screed or rant either. It might have been better if it had been; at least then I'd have rooted for one side or the other, and been emotionally involved, instead of just watching well-photographed events unfold on the screen without much caring how they turned out.
The film has been criticized by many on the right wing for not being sufficiently pro-Israeli. Going in, I was pretty agnostic about the root of the problems in the Middle East, and in my opinion any complaints about bias or balance in
Munich are 90% about the complainer's personal biases. I'm a bit stumped how anyone could think the film pro-Arab. It shows them cold-bloodedly massacring hostages and reveling in the deaths of Jews. True, there is one scene were a young Palestinian gets to speak about the suffering of his people at the hands of Israel, but he's soon revealed to be a scheming terrorist who deserves death, just like every other Arab male in the film.
Far from anti-Israel bias, I thought it was the other way. We see lots of Israelis, and they're a mixed batch; some are gung-ho for murder/revenge, some are just regular people living their lives, others are conflicted, and so on. They're presented as a balanced, realistic group. On the other hand, every Arab in the film is happy that Jews are dying, either outright cheering the TV news of the massacre in Munich, or working to bring about more massacres, or carrying a machine gun and looking swarthy. They bad Arab men have some depth; they don't spit hatred when they're cornered, and they're civil to everyone they meet, but they never defend their actions, or talk about what motivated them to plan terrorist attacks.
In the whole film, the only thing even remotely pro-Arab is the scene where a young Palestinian talks about how Israel has trampled on his people and forced them into concentration camps. I didn't think much of it, since it's inarguably true, to the best of my knowledge. Apparently it's enough to make some viewers to say the movie is anti-Israel, though.
I've also seen complaints that the hit squad was shown to be weak and inept and that that's an insult towards Jews. Come on. I thought that was actually very pro-Israel too; "Look, see, even though they're killing these horrible terrorists, they feel bad about it! And they go out of their way to avoid killing the children or wives of the terrorists, even if it means jeopardizing their entire mission!" Unlike the murderous savages they were killing, of course.
To the more specific scores, with comments by category:
Script/Story: 6All of the dialogue and characters are pretty good, but the overall plot is less so. The film lacks narrative pull; it's not building towards a climax, and there's no central conflict. It's very episodic, as we see the Israeli assassins work to find and eliminate their targets, and each of the individual scenes is pretty entertaining. But they all tend to blend together; there's one bomb in a hotel room after another, numerous scenes of the hit squad talking over huge meals, lots of scenes of anguish over what their lives have become, and so on. Spielberg could have chopped an hour out of the middle of the film without making any difference in the overall feel.
It's more or less accurate to the real history of events, and he wanted to be faithful to real life terrorism, with dozens of individual cells doing their own thing and no central puppet master. But that's why James Bond films have a Dr. Evil type guy to target against. It gives the story a beginning and an end and an overall purpose and goal. All things that were missing from this film.
I also disliked the fact that so little background info was given. Nothing is put into context, and if you entered this film ignorant of the history of the Middle East since WWII, you would have been confused quite a bit of the time. There are mentions of the formation of Israel, how the Jews had to fight to claim it, how Egypt and Jordan were going to attack again and win this time, and so on. All things unexplained by any of the characters in the film, and probably confusing to a lot of viewers, given the level of historical illiteracy in the US these days.
Acting/Casting: 7All the performances were very good. Malaya was debating whether Eric Bana could actually act, or if he's just cast in a roll where he can do his silent, brooding, sulking thing and fit the part perfectly. Personally, I think there are about 3 actual actors in Hollywood; everyone else just plays a version of themselves and it works in movies where the script supports that, and it fails in movies where the script doesn't.
The only complaint I had was the casting, which was too perfect, in retrospect. All of the characters are complete stereotypes; the hot headed murderous guy is all blonde and angry and Aryan, the nerdy bomb-maker is nerdy and small and bespectacled, the calm voice of reason is 60 and impeccably-groomed and buttoned down, the leader is strong and silent and brooding and brave, and so on. Everyone looks exactly like their character type, and while this gets you into the movie easily enough, it seems a bit ridiculous in retrospect. Why couldn't the hot head have been short and ugly? Or the bomb maker reckless and a drunk? Or the terrorists bookish and calm and clean-shaven? Just so that someone wouldn't look exactly like we expected them to look...
Action: 7Lots of action, and it's all well done and believable. See the next score. Lots of bombs go off, there are shoot outs galore, chases, some fight scenes, and so on. None are overtly action scene-y either; it's not that type of film. It's not
War of the Worlds. I thought it was overdone a few times; hardly anyone seems to consider ducking down or taking cover during the shootouts, and if the actual German rescue attempt of the hostages at the Munich airport really went down the way it's portrayed in the film, it had to be the single least-competent military action since the troop rushes at machine gun positions in WWI.
Combat Realism: 8This was an interesting aspect of the film, and not one I had expected. Spielberg intentionally made the action, the shooting, the assassinations, etc very sloppy and amateurish. The Israeli hit squad is an odd bunch, they've never killed before, their bomb-maker isn't very good, and since the story takes place in the 70s, they don't have very much technology, and since they aren't working with the resources of the Israeli government (just money), they've got to do things on their own.
So they end up in seedy hotels and ugly cars, they get faulty explosives, their hits are spur of the moment and poorly-planned, and so on. It could not be farther from the suave, secret agent world of James Bond, and that adds some excitement. I'm sure real life assassinations and criminal stuff is usually like this, with people running around madly, totally lacking in discipline or planning. Shootouts are full of more misses than hits, people struggle to get their guns out, grenade pins are difficult to pull, people are full of fear and terror, etc. Life lacks surgical precision, and this movie is often true to life.
The blood and gore was very well done too. There's not constant violence or action, but when it happens it's very hard-hitting. The blood is incredibly red, almost black it's so dark, and it's chunky and gruesome. When people get shot it looks like it hurts horribly; and the blood splashed around by explosives is really disgusting. People wounded by bombs are in agony, screaming how they can't see, running around naked and horrified, etc. It's definitely not a film for the squeamish, or for those who like their killings to be clean and neat.
Humor: 4The film isn't trying to be a comedy, but the few scenes that try get a good laugh.
Horror: 5This is a debatable score. I could easily have given it an N/A, since it's not really meant to be scary. There aren't any "nervous person creeping along while we wait for someone to leap out behind them" scenes, and no real "Gotcha!" moments either. The scary stuff is man's inhumanity and callousness, and the horrible things people will do for their beliefs. It does a pretty good job getting into the heads of people on both sides of the intractable Israel vs. Palestine conflict, and makes clear why it's been going on since the creation of Israel, and why it will probably continue on forever.
Eye Candy: 6The movie isn't really meant to be pretty, and a great many of the sets are grungy, dirty, bloody, etc. It's just so cleanly-photographed that it looks nice anyway. The use of color is very stylized, sometimes to the point of distraction. Some scenes everything is harshly desaturated,
Fun Factor: 3Not so much.
Replayability: 5I don't see why, but then again, I don't see why not. I've complained that there wasn't any overall suspense or story, so it's not like that aspect is ruined by having seen it already. I didn't especially enjoy it the first time, and I've got no desire to see it again at this point, but it's not one of those films that's going to be radically different/worse the second time around.
Must See on the Big Screen: 1This doesn't mean you should wait for the DVD, but it means you won't miss out on anything if you do. There aren't any gorgeous special effects, or huge action sequences, or anything that will suffer for eventual home viewing.
Overall: 7This one is far more on quality than enjoy-ability. Neither Malaya or I disliked it, and we weren't bored, but we didn't leave the theater debating anything we'd seen, or rerunning great scenes through our heads. We just gave each other an, "It wasn't bad." shrug and walked down the street to Barnes & Noble.
