When you live by the sword, you'll die by the sword

Rating: 10/10 (9 May 2006)

There's no question that "Munich" is sure to spark debate about the ongoing conflicts between Israel and the state of Palestine. The two powers have been going at it for years: when one strikes, the other reprises two-fold, and that's a lot of blood. For the most part, Steven Spielberg's take on the real-life events that unfolded in Munich, Germany in 1972 is a bold and explosive vision.
The events first open as Palestinian militants disguised as tourists storm an apartment building where 11 Israeli athletes participating in the '72 Munich Olympics are staying. The gunmen themselves are eventually killed in a shootout with German authorities but not before they've killed their 11 hostages.
Israel's prime minister makes it a point to not compromise their own deeply-rooted values, but if they don't act they'll appear weak to the rest to the world, so action must be taken. (So perhaps her decisions aren't so much motivated by out-and-out vengeance as they are politics.) She dispatches a team of five men, led by Avner (Eric Bana), to track down and eliminate the 11 men responsible for the massacre (and according to my information, nine of the 11 men were killed).
Based on the book "Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team" by George Jonas, Spielberg's "Munich" also makes a point to explore the nature of revenge while trying its best to not take sides. We know how Spielberg feels about Israel and his own Jewish heritage, but we also see that the man put his heart into this vision. The violence in "Munich" is quite graphic and unsettling but it's still a powerful experience, as we the audience is forced to confront a growing problem within the Middle East.
Though it seems both powers are at a stalemate, one character in "Munich" is blunt that the battle could take hundreds of years and many lives, but eventually the "promised" Holy Land of Israel will fall to Palestine simply because the Palestinians want it more.
From the way things are looking now, I think he's right.
10/10