Doesn't quite pull it off

Rating: 5/10 (15 January 2006)

Steven Spielberg was never going to make anyone happy with "Munich." Pro-Palestinian factions would find it offensive because the film never delves into why those Arab men took the Israeli athletes hostage (and ultimately killed them), and Jewish groups would find the Jewish characters doubting themselves and their philosophical dilemmas offensive, too.
One of my earliest memories of world events was what happened at the 1972 Munich Olympics. I've always been fascinated by what happened and the aftermath. So I was looking forward to this film.
I tried to view "Munich" as a film, not as a political treatise on Arab-Jewish relations or anything else, though it's tough not to see it in that light. I tried to see this film as a thriller loosely based on facts about the Israeli response to the events at the 1972 games. "Munich" would make a great double-feature with the 1999 documentary, "One Day in September," which raised questions also about the hijacking of a Lufthansa airliner that led to West Germany releasing some of those who held the athletes hostage.
As a thriller, "Munich" works in spurts. It's a hit-or-miss film. Spielberg is a terrific visual artist and knows how to frame his shots. But the script by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth is so loose - and I don't mean with the actual events; that is a given - that this thriller never comes close to being as taut as it should.
Spielberg's working with a hugely talented cast. But, with the exception of Eric Bana as Avner, the others in his group seems awfully wrong for their parts. Most glaring is Daniel Craig's character, Steve. You're never quite sure what ethnicity he is. In one crucial scene, he's passed off as South African, yet his accent is anything but.
Spielberg's decision to handle the hostage-taking and subsequent botched rescue at the airport as flashbacks Avner sees don't really work, especially the final scene. What was he thinking? It's almost as if Kushner and Roth realized they hadn't shown the assault at the airport and so decided to tack it on in an incredibly odd manner.
As far as being a political treatise, Spielberg tackles the Palestinian issue, but also seems to use the Israeli response to Munich to discuss life in a post-9/11 America. Golda Meir's comment that even democracies have to compromise their principles for the so-called greater good seems to be a clear allusion to the Bush administration's attitude since 9/11.
But that's where it seems to end. Spielberg doesn't seem to be taking any stand. He's neither admonishing nor endorsing anything. And this middle-of-the-road attitude doesn't seem to quite work. It's as if he's trying to be as inoffensive as possible while making a political thriller.
Characters also chat about the morality of what they're doing, especially when they're asked to assassinate people based solely on the word of their intelligence agency and they get to see none of the evidence. They wonder where the evidence is. And the answer they get from the higher-ups is that they don't need to know. (Much like this administration not bothering about trivial issues such as due process since it believes holding even U.S. citizens incommunicado, without charges or allowing them to see their lawyers, is perfectly alright.)
Where "Munich" ultimately disappoints is that - rather surprisingly - Spielberg, Kushner and Roth fail to create a compelling story out of what should be riveting stuff. Their plot turns tend to get redundant, even predictable, though there's one well done sequence in the rain. The film needed more of that.
"Munich" is by no means an awful film. It runs too long - cutting 30 minutes would have done wonders. The characters also seem strangely aloof. We're never drawn into their predicaments, moral dilemmas and anguish. And, in the end, they just come off mostly as talking-heads.