Not your typical 'revenge/action' movie, but an absorbing, potent look at the cost of taking lives

Rating: 10/10 (23 December 2005)

Steven Spielberg has here his best film- or at least the best in his 'gritty' sort of tradition that was hinted at in the Indiana Jones films, went full bloom in Schindler's List, and matured further with Saving Private Ryan and Minority Report- in many a moon. He uses his perfected skills at maneuvering the mis en scene, using some manipulation, but dealing as seriously as possible with a tense, haunting subject. I've seen many reviewers say the film is haunting, has a haunting quality. Indeed this is true, and it is certainly a running theme in many of Spielberg's best films. And much as it was as well with his two films which he won best director Oscars for, here he deals with not so much the difficult, intensely emotional, and seemingly un-ending power struggle between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but about the increasingly horrifying existential crisis for a man who to the government that hired him does not exist.
This man is Avner, played with the utmost conviction by Eric Bana. Spielberg must have seen something in his eyes that could make him work in this role, and he does- when one looks at him, one can see the conflict that only grows deeper and darker as the film reaches its third act. He's been hired to track down and kill, with his team (which includes great character actors like Matthieu Kassovitz and Daniel Craig), the eleven Palestinian terrorists who killed the hostages in the 1972 Olympics massacre. Things go well, at first, at least under the circumstances, as Avner also gets a little close with his 'source' giving him the names of targets for hefty sums. But as they close in closer, and as the tension is consciously squeezed tighter into paranoia, things aren't going quite as planned.
What makes a film like this work so brilliantly really is not what could be turned by another director into something more routine, and, indeed, condescending. Spielberg, when working with his rare R-rating to the maximum, doesn't shy away from giving us the full lot of what goes on in these raids, these bombings, shootings, plans of killing and striking back. But along the way he also gives some food for thought, so to speak, like an intriguing scene of dialog between Avner and a man in Athens (not to say too much about it, though Al Green is playing in the background). And certain scenes rank with Schindler's List showing Spielberg with a full grasp of what he MUST show the audience, however some might find it to be eye-widening or cringe-worthy (as it was for me). With his usually intuitive cameraman Janusz Kaminski, he creates this world as hellishly vivid as possible with a hand-held camera, and different color saturations for scenes (plus the lighting, which has now become Spielberg/Kaminski's trademark for the past decade).
And, in the end, it comes back down to what we care about with the character(s), and the protagonist's story. Avner knows he has a job to do, getting paid immensely for something (much like the Kurtz job in Apocalypse Now) that does not 'exist'. But the questions raised about what may or may not come of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict of course cannot be answered in the course of the film, only raised to a certain extent. If there is any message to the film- and I'm sure being it a Spielberg one there is (and perhaps I didn't fully comprehend it on the first viewing, being wrapped up in the pure film-making aspect of it all)- it may be that killing, taking life, even if it is OK'd by certain interested parties, will affect the soul, and the souls of those around you. That the message coincides with a taut precision with the characters, and the impeccable storytelling, makes it all the more worthwhile. The controversy around the film may be more from people who haven't see the film than those who have. Once seen, and the initial ideas of what the film might be about are gone, the story can be watched on its own terms.