Typical Spielberg, for Better and for Worse

Rating: 6/10 (18 July 2008)

On the plus side, the cinematography is as good as it gets. Spielberg is an undoubted master of the field and as a lover of cinema, I regard him as one of the truly great exponents, a genius. On the downside, his stories tend to feature a cloying sentimentality (AI, Saving Private Ryan etc) and this aspect inevitably detracts (at best) or ruins (at worst) the overall experience. And so with Munich, we get the standard Spielberg package. I strongly feel that if a movie is to feature a series of historical events, particularly a recent tragedy such as the events portrayed in this film, then it should be factually accurate and this film is not. There is no mention of the innocent waiter who was murdered by the Israeli squad as a result of mistaken identity for example. Now I'm not trying to make a political point here. As far as I am concerned, those responsible for the murder (that word again which I use intentionally) of the Israelis at Munich (or the murderers of innocent unarmed civilians in any circumstances) deserve everything they get. The suggestion that a series of unlikely methods of killing the perpetrators was used  exploding beds and so forth  each different from the previous, is complete fiction. Without wishing to sound too pedantic, the danger with this approach is that many people believe that what they are watching on the screen is fact. One IMDb reviewer comments that 'Spielberg gives us one hell of a history lesson'. He does not. Overall then, a decent action thriller, no more and no less.