Midly entertaining

Rating: 6/10 (26 May 2006)

You come to expect certain things for a Spielberg movie, namely a great story, direction and flavor.
Munich possesses few of those qualities.
Being vaguely familiar with the events which inspired the movie, I eagerly awaited Spielberg's take on the story. While not quite expecting Schindler's List or Saving Private Ryan, I sincerely thought that this movie was an Oscar candidate.
The movie starts out well enough, but seems to lag at times towards the end. The lack of depth of the characters, save for Eric Bana's, is the ultimate failure here. What Spielberg did for a couple grunts in Saving Private Ryan (Giovanni Ribisi, Tom Hanks, Adam Golberg and Vin Diesel), he is unable to recapture here.
We don't care what happens. People are being sought out and executed in a systematic fashion. You almost feel bad for the targets...almost. I do not believe that to be Spielberg's intent, as the film is supposed to illustrate to Mossad's quest to bring to justice those responsible.
The movie is far too long and runs out of steam. Too little is done with locations and the only other saving grace, other than Bana, is the performance given by Michael Lonsdale (Papa). 6/10.