The human side of warring factions

Rating: 9/10 (22 May 2007)

First, on a light note, I saw "Road to Perdition" right before I saw this film, and therefore made the conclusion that Daniel Craig is in every film made. At this point, I feel like I know his face better than one of my family members.
"Munich" is a powerful story done by a powerhouse group, as it is directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by Tony Kushner. It's the story of a young Israeli, Avner (Eric Bana), who is asked to head up a team with the mission to eliminate the men responsible for the massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The situation is re-enacted but real television news clips are used throughout the beginning of the film. Though he has a wife and their first child is on the way, Avner accepts the assignment, which takes him all over the world tracking down and killing the miscreants. When his assignment comes to an end, he finds he is unable to shake his experiences.
"Munich" demonstrates, in the form of Avner and his team, the disintegration of those qualities that make us human beings in the first place. These men believe in what they're doing but become disillusioned - can they all be trusted? Whom can they trust? What is the point of, as one of them puts it, "all this blood" when the people they kill are replaced with worse people? In the beginning, Avner clearly has no affection for killing - he watches, horrified, as it goes on. The team is careful not to hurt civilians - for instance, they protect a little girl, the daughter of one of the Black September planners, from a bomb intended for her father. Later, Avner's orders are "just do it," and there are bodies of innocent victims everywhere. Avner pays a man named Louis huge money for information on the whereabouts of the Black September men - and then begins to doubt him - is he in turn telling the other side his whereabouts because he has become a target? I agree that Spielberg does not take sides in the film and shows how everyone suffers in any violent conflict, and that after a time, people hate for the sake of hating and kill for the sake of killing, often forgetting what started the whole cycle.
Eric Bana gives a fantastic performance as Avner. He looks so different at the end of the film than at the beginning, as he becomes increasingly more paranoid. He is particularly frightening in the scene where he is making love to his wife and reliving what he's been through. One really feels the harrowing experiences he's had and what it has done to his spirit.
A thought-provoking and sobering film.