What a let down.

Rating: 4/10 (18 September 2006)

This is a film about a fascinating subject; it may not be true but fascinating all the same. A bit like 'The Day of the Jackal'  nothing to disprove it ever happened.
I remember watching the Olympic Games in 1972 on the television; these were my Olympic Games; I had the time to watch all the events, I had a great new colour television set and I knew a lot about the track and field events. This was the time of David Bedford the great British middle distance runner; he was breaking records for the 5000 and 10000 metres almost every week and he was set to show it to the world in the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972.
We turned the television set on one day and all hell had broken loose; we didn't understand what was going on; we couldn't understand why anybody could find something more important than the Olympic Games; why couldn't they, at least, let us see the 5000 metres final or even the 1500 metres? But it was serious; every time we watched the TV there was a hooded man standing on a balcony; the camera was fixed off and commentators all around the world spoke to their respective countries and filled time as we watched the fixed off shot.
We thought that the Olympic Games would be abandoned but it was not to be; one morning we got up and we were told it was all over; the entire Israeli team had been killed at the airport; it was reported that the Germans had opened fire on the helicopter, taking the hostages and terrorists to some destination or other, and that all on board the chopper had been killed.
They decided to cancel the Olympic Games for one day in respect for those killed and then they resumed; David Bedford, the greatest middle distance runner in Britain didn't win anything; the 5000 and 10000 metres were both won by a Finnish runner who, it was alleged doped his own blood.
So this film is supposed to fill in the blank spaces for us, the people who were transfixed to our television sets all those years ago; I'm not sure whether it does that or not or whether it just gives us the interpretation of a Mister Steven Spielberg.
It tells of the Israeli cabinet meeting deciding to send a crack assassination squad to kill the master minds behind the Munich massacre. "We have 11 Palestinian names; each one of them had a hand in planning Munich. We want them all dead." This could have been a riveting thriller but it isn't; it was directed by, arguably, the most successful director in movie history, written by maybe the most successful playwright living, Tony Kushner, and Eric Roth a successful screenwriter.
So what went wrong because this isn't a great film; maybe they should have contacted people from the other side? The film starts off okay but then goes into soap opera and propaganda; just look at some of the lines from the movie: "The only blood I care about is Jewish blood." "We kill for our future." "We kill for peace." These lines make you ask yourself what this film would have been like if made by Martin Scorsese; as it is it tries to be too many things.
It tries to be funny; for example; the bomb maker  and I'm not giving anything away and spoiling anything, doesn't make the device big enough for one killing and makes it too big for another killing  this is shot for comedy and nothing should be funny about it; one victim is shot as he carries a bag full of groceries  now why did they do that? So that he could be shot through the shopping bag and that the bag could leak of milk  you know the scene we have been watching it for years but this was shot by one of the most successful directors in the history of movies  just not good enough.
At one point the assassination squad are given a 'safe house' in Athens only to find that they are sharing it with other terrorists; there's a bizarre scene as if they are at a boy-scout jamboree and shouting out their troop names; IRA, ETTA, Bader-Meinhof; then they settle down and all sleep in the one room; this gives us an excuse for the two leaders to talk and philosophise about their beliefs with the leader, Avner, not letting on he is Jewish, of course, but the scene is a clumsy effort to educate and preach to us  the audience and we know how the relationship is going to end.
The film is also very annoying in its use of the zoom lens; I thought zooming had gone out of fashion since the seventies but no; it's just lazy and saves them using tracks and cranes.
There are some nice performances from Ciarán Hinds and Geoffrey Rush but what a let down.