Wasted opportunity

Rating: 1/10 (15 February 2006)

Sadly, this is a real stinker.
The characters are laughably wooden and the dialogue is excruciatingly hackneyed. In short this is the Yiddish A-Team does Europe, without the humour.
But this is much worse than simply poor entertainment. I believe that when making a film about an historical event the director has an obligation to either portray that event as faithfully as possible or to clearly state that it does not. The film begins with the words "Inspired by real events" which is merely a disingenuous muddling of the fact that this film is a complete fiction. It is not only dishonest but damaging to Hollywoodize history in this way, for both the real people touched by these events and the people who will come away from this film believing it to be the truth.
There were two documentaries about the post-Munich events shown recently on British TV. They were not only far more moving and gripping but told the facts. It was a great story; unfortunately Spielberg wasted the opportunity to tell it.