Impressive film-making, but superficial and heavy-handed

Rating: 5/10 (11 December 2005)

I saw this movie at a screening and I'm very mixed about it. In a way, it was kind of bad, and yet also admirable...
It was great to be seeing a big budget film tackle political subject matter. And the film takes great care to present a balanced point of view: there is a strong effort to humanize many of the characters, Arab and Israeli.
But I felt hit over the head with the film's "unbiased" message of peace. Once again, Spielberg buries potentially interesting & adult subject matter with his slick film-making skills and his heavy-handed, "soul of a child" sensibility.
There are some great things here. The acting is pretty great. Eric Bana gives a fine, understated performance. Daniel Craig is magnetic, and several of the supporting actors are excellent and surprisingly authentic, notably Michael Lonsdale.
The production design, sets and cinematography all work together superbly to re-create the early '70s. There aren't many films lately which can truly evoke a specific period. Munich does it almost flawlessly. I really felt transported by the sets, costumes and lighting, it was if I were watching some 30-year old French thriller. The only thing that gave it away were the smooth, dynamic camera moves, many of which, by the way, involved extremely complicated choreography.
There is a visceral excitement to some of the film. YES, it's extremely violent, but a good portion of it is devoted to the suspense and thrill of international spycraft, always a crowd-pleasing subject.
But, as the characters carry out their harrowing missions, the film starts to feel hollow. Considering the fascinating nature of the subject matter, it feels like there's too much slick film-making in place of ideas and/or character development.
There's some good dialogue here and there, but several times, I felt the actors were explaining too much, as if the filmmakers didn't trust the audience to "get it." Once these realizations set in, the film starts to feel way too long...
When the film, later, clumsily reaches for meaning and character depth, it feels forced and too late. Though Bana is very good, the script doesn't give him enough to flesh out his character. There is one scene in particular which is SO OUTRAGEOUSLY BAD, it doesn't even seem like the same movie.
Ultimately, there's no real emotional tug here, and one gets the sense that the same story could have been told more effectively in a shorter film which focused more on the main characters.
But, yet, the film did affect me, mostly for the way it convincingly transported me, through its look and some visual sequences, into its world, evoking thoughts and memories of historical events and the state of our world today.