Gripping, terrifying, emotionally wrenching.

Rating: 10/10 (31 December 2005)

If only it were fiction...
"Munich" is an outstanding movie from the one director today who consistently hands us outstanding movies, making his own mark of excellence higher to reach. How can a movie maker do it again, after "Saving Private Ryan" and "Schindler's List" have slammed the moviegoer between the eyes?
"Munich" begins with the 1972 massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the "peace" Olympics in Munich. The Israeli mission to hunt down and kill those responsible for planning the assassination is the movie's story. A team of 5 men, previously unknown to each other, none of whom is a trained killer or assassin, is assembled and their job is to seek and destroy those who were responsible for the massacre. Their leader is a man who has "the most boring job in the country", as he describes it to his wife; nervous, frightened-looking, inept at first, he and his team begin their mission and their discovery of killing, passion, fear, loyalty, paranoia, and the ability to retain a sense of morality in a world that increasingly shows none. Chilling, terrifying, exciting and dreadful, in the true sense of the word.
For myself, the most compelling moment was when Avner, the leader of the team, in the midst of the horror of what he is becoming, telephones his wife and hears his baby daughter for the first time. Avner's face crumbles as he weeps for what he once had, once was, once thought was so boring but was so innocent, what he can never have again.