What Price Vengeance?

Rating: 10/10 (15 January 2006)

Steven Spielberg's huge popularity means that he is frequently the target of critics, whether it is for shouldering the blame for the Hollywood "blockbuster" trend that started with JAWS, for alleged audience manipulation (as in E.T.), or for the more weighty issues behind SCHINDLER'S LIST and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. But nowhere does it seem that criticism has been as fierce as it is with MUNICH. Here he is, the most popular filmmaker in Hollywood, tackling the subjects of terrorism and vengeance with the same consummate skill he tackled with sharks, the Holocaust, and aliens--and here are people slamming him not only for doing so, but for doing so in a way they don't agree with. Why is this? For starters, as the title indicates, he uses as a focal point the murders of eleven Israeli athletes by members of the ultra-violent Palestinian terrorist group Black September at the Summer Olympics in Munich on September 5, 1972, and the response by Israel. Eric Bana is one of five Israeli Mossad agents sent to track down eleven high-ranking Palestinians who are believed to have had a hand in planning the Munich massacre. The purpose of the mission is to send a message once and for all to the Palestinians that Israel will not be intimidated into ceasing to exist as a country. The team goes about their business throughout Europe, though their operations are not the most perfect (which is so often the case in missions of this sort), and are always bloody. Very soon, however, they learn of other Palestinian terrorist acts, including the hijacking of a Lufthansa jet in Germany, and they find themselves not only being the hunters but also being the hunted and the haunted as well. Near the end, after he has moved to New York, Bana openly wonders to his superior (Geoffrey Rush, in an incredibly direct performance) whether they really got the exact ones who plotted the Munich tragedy. It is a question that remains open-ended, as the film ends with a view across the Hudson River to Manhattan and the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
No film about real-life acts of political terrorism will ever satisfy everybody, but Spielberg has come in for some extreme attacks. On the one side are those who criticize his stand as being too pro-Israeli; and on the other are those who feel he gives too much credence to the Palestinian terrorists. The fact is, of course, being Jewish, he is hardly going to go against the state of Israel on anything. But he also sees the troubling ambiguity of the aftermath of Munich in relation to the decades-long Israel/Palestinian conflict and, with respect to what Israel did to avenge Munich, he asks the question: "What price vengeance?" How can a mission like the one Bana and his fellow Israelis undertake ever fully satisfy the need for vengeance for Munich without costing a huge price, in terms of human lives lost, and in human souls that are destroyed in the continuous cycle of bloody revenge killings? These are very troubling questions, and I think this is why certain people with extremist views are attacking Spielberg for MUNICH, even with its superb ensemble acting, taut editing, and compelling storyline. A lot of people don't want to deal with that painful reality; nor do they want to deal with the fact that the world doesn't work on a black-and-white/good-guys-and-bad guys level. Spielberg knows the world doesn't operate like that. And the film's final shot of the World Trade towers clearly states that the questions of vengeance and retribution are now being directed at his own country with respect to its war on terrorism, motivated by revenge for 9/11 and the price *that* war is taking on American lives and the soul of the nation.
The consummate skill that Spielberg, his crew, and his cast put into making MUNICH work is what I think will outlast the attacks against the film. This is a film that is a must-see for all those who really care about where our world is headed, and how we deal with the always troubling subject of terrorism.