Minor Spielberg: heavy sentimentalism doesn't blend well with dark real life background

Rating: 4/10 (27 April 2010)

It's a long time since Spielberg has lost his primal directing skills. Not that he has become a bad director, but it seems to me that all his movies since E.T. are plagued with heavy sentimentalism. The wünder kid of the 70s benefits from almost unlimited backup and this makes all his subsequent films big clean streamlined products, and no longer lovely chiseled flicks for a wide audience. Actually I do think all that makes highbrow critics describe Spielberg as an auteur is the exact bs he revels in and develops to the point of heavy sentimentalism.
In Munich, there is the protracted hero, a good and sentimental Israeli patriot. Because with Spielberg private life or patriotic duty are loaded with the same sore sentimentalism. It's not something than tells the viewer about the hero, it's just stock Spielberg sentimentalism, meant to give the audience its fair share of base emotions. Spielberg nonetheless tries to avoid depicting Isrealis as the absolute good guys and Palestinians as the Arch Evilmen. But he is so at a loss for a firm viewpoint... All he is able to give us is this dumb "nothing's pitch black, nothing's bright white" tautological storyline. This is sentimentalism for dummies, no wonder the movie goes nowhere. It's just a routine spy-job movie. Munich as very little to do with this, and that's why we are fed with this protracted rendering of the Munich tragedy spliced in 4-odd parts and spilled over the main 2h30 course.
The casting and acting are really good, but the locations, sets and photography give too much of a surreal aspect to the story. It looks like a dream, never too close to a real nightmare (contrary to what the hero is supposed to experience): Spielberg sentimentalism is totally at odds with the subject matter. Interesting subject, wrong execution < wrong director.