Dangerous Fiction:

Rating: 2/10 (7 December 2008)

I love Eric Bana and Stephen Spielberg most of the time, but this is not history. The argument has been made that, though the history may be flawed, the film should be judged on it's artistic merits. That is all well and good, but when filmmakers, especially those with the influence of a Spielberg, adjust history to fit their worldviews, people in the real world are influenced and may suffer. The fact is that a group of terrorists, who spoke in terms of martyrdom, and in the midst of a wave of global terrorism, decided to target unarmed athletes at the 1972 "Olympics of Peace."
Israel's response was reasonable and measure, if not without mistakes, undertaken by professionals to target those involve in an ongoing campaign to kill its citizens. Spielberg's naked attempt to draw some kind of moral equivalence is vile. In totalitarian states that sponsor terrorism and teach their children suicidal hatred, fanciful plays on reality such as this are of no consequence. But in democratic societies, were voters are influenced by largely fictional films pushing the phrase "inspired buy actual events," voters are moved and policies influence, which can and do put real people at risk.
I'm sure, however, that opinions like this count for nothing in the semi-reality that Spielberg lives in.