Perhaps Spielberg's most fully realized human film

Rating: 10/10 (14 July 2008)

Interesting that with all the hype for MINORITY REPORT and AI, Spielberg's true masterpiece of the 2000s may just be this film MUNICH. MUNICH is perhaps that only film that Spielberg has directed that doesn't manipulate the viewer in some way and tries to take sides. In that sense, it's the most human film that he's ever done. It displays all characters, whether the 'good guy' Israeli Mossad agents, or the 'bad guy' terrorists that took part in the 1972 assassinations of the Israeli Olympians that are the agents' prey, as multi-dimensional, with beliefs, feelings, and humanity. The deaths in these films are as realistic as anything you'll see on film. No glamorizing, no over-the-top special effects. So you come away from it feeling bad for the victims, even though they perpetrated a horrific crime.
MUNICH stars newcomer Eric Bana in a great performance (how he didn't get a Best Actor nod is beyond me) as Mossad agent Avner, who leads a group tasked by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir to assassinate the Palestinian terrorists who killed members of Israeli Olympic team. Included in this team are Steve and Ephraim (played by the fine actors Daniel Craig and Geoffrey Rush). These men are surprisingly plain, down-to-earth people with families and many interests, not the cold-blooded assassins that you would expect. They actually sit down with each other regularly to have meals together (Avner is an excellent cook) and converse about their personal lives. This part truly humanizes them to the viewer and makes the terror all the more real b/c it's hard to imagine these men as killers, so when we see them do it, we are mortified.
Being a true story based on horrific events, MUNICH is surprisingly not boring or downbeat. The characters are so interesting, vivid, and multi-faceted that you stay glued to the screen. It's almost amazing that this is a film directed by Steven Spielberg, who I greatly admire, because there is no sentimentality, manipulation, or heavy-handedness whatsoever. Even in some of his best works, that has been the case, but not here, which belongs among his best. The ending is truly not a Spielberg ending that you would expect. I think that MUNICH is the film where we really see a different side of Spielberg, not SCHINDLER'S LIST or SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.
After seeing MUNICH, I really wonder how it did not take home the Best Picture prize of 2005 or director for Spielberg. I don't care that Spielberg had already won 2 directing Oscars. This should have been his 3rd.