Munich

Rating: 7/10 (3 June 2008)

After re-locating myself to Amsterdam, I have slowly developed an interest in understanding Europe, Jews, issues surrounding Jerusaleum and Palestine  listening and watching different viewpoints (mainly on CNN and BBC). I read in one of my Google searches that Munich was a movie that was discussed and debated a lot on many blogs about its stand on Palestine and Israel. With new Indiana Jones releasing this week and the commonality between them being Steven Spielberg, I decided to have a look at Munich  a movie I had missed while it was released for the first time.
The story line is simple  Avner (Iric Bana) is chosen by Israel government to eliminate the masterminds of 1972 Munich Olympics massacre done Palestine terrorists. Avner gets enough money and freedom to do whatever he wants to eliminate the people. The whole operations is planned to be done undercover without anyone knowing about the motives or purposes of the operations. Avner hires four other persons (one of them is Daniel Craig) and the movie rolls into the planning and execution parts of seven out of eight killings - one after the other. There are intermittent discussions within this group on political issues and difference between Israel and Palestine. In the end Avner finds his team being target of elimination and when he is the only surviving member of his team, he thinks they were used as a pawn in the big political game which does not help or benefit anyone.
The movie is based on the book: Vengeance  The story of an Israel Counter Terrorist Team. It seems that Director Steven Spielberg invited four script writers and collated Tony Kushner and Eric Roth's scripts to make the movie.
Iric Bana is very good in the movie; he is so handsome and has acted also well. Daniel Craig is okay in the small role.
The movie focuses more on the execution of murderous attacks rather than the Israel  Palestine issue. So it is a big let down for those who looked up to Steven Spielberg to provide an interesting and intelligent take on it. What we see is a run of the mill, commercial take by Steven Spielberg. May be that was his intention. For me it became evident that the director wanted to project human face of the counter terrorist Jew sqaud  where they delay the killings because of some humane reasons. There were also many pro-Jew statements, and a few con-Jew statements were so disguised that one can easily miss them. I get a feel that Steven Spielberg was a big scared of the Hollywood Jews lobby.
I read that many Jews who wanted Steven Spielberg to take a strong pro-Jew stand took objection to this run of mill movie. I also found last sex scene of Iric Bana with flashback of Munich killing  so corny and 'B' grade.
Overall a good entertaining movie  if one does not expect intellectual discussions around it.
(Stars 6.75 out of 10)