I'm not a Spielberg fan and this film too is a disappointment

Rating: 2/10 (24 January 2007)

Spielberg loves to show violence - be it with a knife, a gun, or using sex to depict violence in the body, mind or spirit. There is usually this twisted edge to his films, I include Schindler's List in this for sure...but Munich is a very bizarre film. I am not sure what Spielberg was trying to do with the film. Having lived in Israel during the Munich massacre, I was very aware of Israeli culture, language, behavior and most of the scenes that take place in Israel are just very poor in portraying the Israeli world. It may seem incidental, but to use 'Yiddish' phrasing rather than Hebrew phrasing was truly annoying. Eric Bana is miscast. Sorry everyone, he just is not believable as a young Israeli Mossad agent. The rest of the Israeli Mossad team - well they too just don't give me the feeling that I am watching Israelis. And from there the film goes down hill for me. Spielberg lost me within the first 5 minutes.
I could write a scene by scene criticism of the film, but I have to be honest, the film is boring. 1972 was a very interesting year on the planet. I never felt like I was in the year 1972. Add to that, Spielberg and the script, does not give me enough insight into Black September - he doesn't give me their motivation for the massacre.
I have to say that in comparison, the film, THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL which also explores the world of terrorism and the Israeli Mossad was a very good, solid, informative, on the edge of the seat film. I wish Spielberg would stop being mediocre and give us something we can really get our teeth into.