The word is "ambivalent"

Rating: 6/10 (6 January 2006)

It seems to me that "Munich" is not pro-Palestinian, though it may be less pro-Israeli than one would expect from the director of "Schindler's List". What distinguishes "Munich" is Spielberg's determination to portray the Israeli retaliation for the massacre of its Olympic team in morally ambiguous, rather than heroic, terms.
There are no villains in this film. The Israelis are conscientious, morally complex, and sympathetic, not to mention diverse. So are their adversaries. Avnar, for example, is more interested in his baby, his wife and his cooking than in getting revenge against Black September. He takes the mission reluctantly and carries it out with increasing pangs of guilt, pangs which ultimately lead him to leave Israel. We don't see the Palestinian characters at such close range, but what we do see - innocent artistic pursuits, family lives, good-humored banter, honest patriotism - hardly makes it any easier for the Israeli team to kill them.
What Spielberg has done is to produce a film that argues against violence in general, which he sees as an endless and futile cycle of action and reaction. Seen this way, is Black September's assault on the Israeli Olympic team an unprovoked attack or a retaliation for previous wrongs? Is Avnar's mission a justifiable form of retaliation or just another link in an endless chain of violence? Everything about the plot and the characters emphasizes the alleged futility of the mission and as we watch, the team begins to lose confidence in its own rectitude as well as its competence. It is hard to kill people at close range who appear perfectly decent. Have the higher ups identified the right people? What happens if an innocent person, even a child, happens to get in the way? Then, each time the team scores a kill, they hear that their enemies have launched a new attack in response. They wonder if they are really getting anywhere. They also wonder if the entire business has not compromised them as decent people. Are they really any better, or any different, from the Black September organizers they are pursuing? By the end of the film, Avnar is so disillusioned with the mission and the bosses who recruited him, that he leaves Israel to live in Brooklyn. His nights are sleepless and his days spent looking over his shoulder for assassins.
Those who agree with this point of view - which is essentially rather close to pacifism - will rate the film very highly. Even those who don't agree - and I am one of them - will give Spielberg credit for having made a complex and interesting film that provokes thought, while rejecting easy answers and simplistic formulations.