Terrific production, problematic story

Rating: 8/10 (8 January 2006)

There are truly powerful scenes in Munich. The massacre, which unfolds episodically by flashback throughout the movie, is stark but not lurid. The individual scenes of retribution are beautifully executed (no pun intended). And I particularly like the mysterious French family, whose precise role remains ambiguous if not sinister. Which brings me to the wonderful Michael Lonsdale, who plays the family patriarch or Godfather, if you will. Lonsdale is in the same role here, that of "enabler," as he had in the De Niro thriller Ronin. All the other players are quite good, especially Ciaràn Hindes, whose face reminds me of a porcelain mask. I was sorry to see him as Caesar, in HBO/BBC's Rome, because he was so good I didn't want him to meet Caesar's fate. Well, I was frustrated again here, because Hindes's Carl also comes to a bad end.
A problem I have with this movie is that I'm not convinced of the plausibility of an assassination team's holding ethics seminars between jobs, which is what the story seems to be about. Is it really plausible that for such a ruthless, brutal job the tough Israeli generals, politicians and Mossad would choose Avner (Eric Bana), a conscience-ridden yuppie with a young, pregnant wife, someone who apparently has never killed before, who needs on-the-job training to do so? Furthermore, this ingénue is appointed the team leader! I'm not sure if Avner is based on a true-life character. If he is, then I must question Israel's wisdom in sending this Hamlet to do a job better left to a less scrupulous operative, like team member Steve (Daniel Craig), who says, "The only blood that matters to me is Israeli blood."
Another problem is Spielberg's introduction of a subplot, the conflicted relationship between Lonsdale's Papa and his go-between son, Louis (Mathieu Amalric). Papa's disappointment is met by Louis's resentment. When a double-cross is suspected by Avner's team, has Louis gone freelance? When, near the end, Papa assures Avner that no harm will come to Avner's family from him, Avner is left to conclude that the threat is from Mossad's cleaning house. But then we are assured that it's not Mossad. So again, has Louis gone freelance? Unfortunately, we're not given enough for more than conjecture. The same can be said about Papa's family, which is made fascinating by an elaborate sequence, in which other characters are briefly introduced, but with no follow-up, leaving us to ask ,"What's going on here?" If Spielberg didn't have enough time or didn't want to digress, then his adding this complexity without developing it seems gratuitous.
Finally, there's a scene in the denouement, where the traumatized Avner, back from his mission, is copulating with his wife, while the final act of the Munich massacre plays out in his head. Spielberg seems to be playing it like the scene from The Godfather, in which Coppola crosscuts between the Corleone baptism rite and the slaughter of Corleone's enemies. As the Munich massacre reaches its climax, Avner reaches his. I'm not sure exactly what the juxtaposition is supposed to signify, the haunting of conscience or the confrontation between the act of destruction and the act of creation, or perhaps the carnality of both.
I have a feeling that the tormented Avner and his team's between-hit seminars are Spielberg/Kushner creations which, as valid as they may be polemically, fail to serve the story dramatically or even historically. That said, I was relieved that Spielberg didn't succumb to the cultural relativism he's been accused of in other reviews. In the final scene, Avner's control (Geoffrey Rush), refuses to be swayed by Avner's display of scruples, and there we are left.