Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16826 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-06-12
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Arabic, Icelandic
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 157 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Munich is a film with no easy answers, and plenty of uncomfortable moments. It also finds Steven Spielberg on masterly form behind the camera, telling a relentlessly serious and unsettling story with the gravitas it absolutely requires.

Set immediately after the murder of nine Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics (an event that's brutally re-enacted), the film is supposedly a fictionalised account based on true events of what happened next. Namely, the Israelis ordering together a secret team--led by Eric Bana's Avner--to take out those they considered responsible.

Only it's not that easy. It doesn't take long for the film to start blurring the moral debate. Is what Avner and his team are doing that different from the original assassins? Can he reconcile the brutality of his actions? And what happens when the programme of retaliation doesn't go quite to plan?

By turns, Munich is a brutal, gripping and important film. It's not always easy to penetrate, and it really demands some good old-fashioned concentration to fully appreciate it. Yet it's superb filmmaking, and an engrossing piece of cinema. Oscar may have snubbed it, but you'd be wise not to make the same mistake.--Jon Foster

Synopsis
A thought-provoking surprise from famed director Steven Spielberg, MUNICH explores the after effects of the brutal terrorist attacks on the Israeli athletic team at that German city's 1972 Olympic Games. Loosely adapted from the book VENGEANCE by Hungarian George Jonas, the script was largely written by the provocative, award-winning playwright Tony Kushner (ANGELS IN AMERICA), who lends an incisive intelligence to the dialogue. The film begins with the violent sequence of the terrorists carrying out their attacks on the Israelis; a bloody and gruesome sequence that is deftly and beautifully handled by Spielberg and his brilliant cinematographer, Januzs Kaminski. Back in Israel, we meet the handsome and charming Avner, deeply in love with his beautiful, pregnant wife. Domestic bliss is short-lived however; immediately following these Black September attacks, Avner (THE HULK's Eric Bana), the son of an Israeli hero, is summoned by his country's famed secret service agency, the Mossad, to carry out violent retaliations against those Palestinian terrorists allegedly behind the Munich massacre. Commanded from afar by prickly government agent Ephraim (the inimitable Geoffrey Rush), Avner and his team of handpicked men pugnacious South African Steve (Daniel Craig), goofy ex-toy maker Robert (French actor Matthieu Kassovitz), morally conflicted Carl (Ciaran Hinds), and terse professional Hans (Hanns Zischler) must deal with some shady, nefarious international figures as they track down their Palestinian prey. Their mission takes them everywhere, from the villas of Rome to a seedy hotel in Cyprus, and with each successful kill, Avner's iron will begins to dissolve, and guilt and doubt begin to take hold of his conscience. Strong performances (particularly by the magnetic Eric Bana), gripping action, moral complexity, and a political urgency make the film not only consistently entertaining, but enormously important. Kushner and Spielberg work together to make it clear that the past informs the present, and the lingering final shot should leave viewers with much to think about.

Customer Reviews

A film that needs more than one viewing...
I think that people will look back on Steven Spielberg's career in years to come and wonder why this film didn't merit the reaction of some of Spielberg's other "historical epics". It's a good old-fashioned thriller in many aspects, except that this is a plausible semi-factual account of the search for the terrorists behind Black September and the Munich massacres.

The premise is relatively simple, a group is put together, all of them specialists and all of them put under cover by Mossad to seek out and kill the gunmen that escaped from Munich after the 1972 killings of Israeli athletes and coaches at the Munich Olympics on 6th September 1972. However, Spielberg never gets too involved in the "rights" and "wrongs" of this story - you know that he feels sympathy for the innocents who were killed, but he also appears to feel sympathy for both the Israeli and Arab terrorists as people, if not for the bloodshed caused by them.

Spielberg seems to want you to see these men and women capable of murder and of being real human beings at the same time. He never excuses their behaviour - given his own ethnicity, I would have assumed that he would, but he doesn't - and he makes the characters so real and sometimes even warm that you almost forget what they are capable of.

And this is the skill and probably the point of the story, you can never quite forget that they are also murderers. Eric Bana, as he often does, brings another dimension to his character, Avner, and the other lead characters (including the often criticised Daniel Craig - his accent wasn't THAT bad) also show you sides to what otherwise could have been portayed as cold-blooded terrorists.

But it is two French actors who I think deserve special mention: Mathieu Kassovitz who plays Robert, a toy-maker turned bomb-maker and Mathieu Amalric who plays Louis, a "fixer" who works for all of the special and secret service agencies, it seems. Both give wonderful performances.

Finally, Spielberg again pushes the emotional buttons at all points, dropping into the film reconstructions of the terrible events which triggered the events of the film: the massacres at the Olympics. Without even the slightest hint of docu-drama about it, you see the lookalike actors play out the events of that day without the slightest bit of tackiness. It perfectly underlines the tragedy of the whole situation.

Spielberg's modern masterpiece, then, definitely is worth watching. But I have to say on watching it a second and third time, I picked up on so much more detail and I would urge anyone, Spielberg fan or not, to watch it.

A response to terrorism that many nations would like to do?
I put this DVD on late at night with the intention of watching half of it and then returning to it the next day or so, however I ended up sitting up late and watching it all (two and a half hours).

Based on 'historical fiction' the film loosely tells the tale of 'Operation Wrath of God' - the Israeli government's response to the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.

Eric Bana (Avner) is the central character and the film tracks the gradual toll that the punishing schedule of assassination takes on his mental wellbeing.

Interestingly, there are occasions when the Israelis agents and the Palestinian radicals are at close quarters and get on as well as anybody on a personal level (e.g. on a balcony in Cyprus and in a 'safe house' in Athens). At the end of the day, people are people - but sadly these individuals are at the centre of a long-running and complicated conflict.

Both sides have their political say in quieter moments in the film: the Israeli view (that Israel is small, their only 'home' and a safe haven from anti-semitism - especially after Hitler and World War 2) and the Palestinian view (that they are landless and wandering, and in effect victims of post World War 2 politics, even though that conflict had nothing to do with them).

Overall, this is an engrossing film. Some Western democracies would probably like to respond to terrorism the way Israel and Mossad did, but they are greatly constrained by the 'rule of law' and no death penalty (so can't risk getting caught at the highest level). This gives the film a 'Death Wish', street justice, eye-for-an-eye undertone.

You also get a strong sense for the murky world of the secret services and the fact that no one knows who to trust - Mossad, the CIA, the KGB and shadowy informers who play them all against each other and sell information for financial gain. This is particularly the case when the team kill a KGB agent in Greece (caught up in a shoot out) and thereafter the hunters also become the hunted.

There's an interesting scene where Avner expresses the personal view that for every terrorist he kills another, more radical one, will simply take his place. Poignantly, in the background, the World Trade Center is clearly visible (as it is mid-1970's New York).

Once again, another great perfomance by Eric Bana (it's hard to believe this guy was also 'Chopper' in the film of the same name). Likewise, it was interesting to see Daniel Craig before he became Britain's 007 (he's actually the most radical within the Israeli group).

Spielberg does it again
I was never entirely convinced about Eric Bana the movie star. From his breakthrough role in Chopper, through his oddly unengaging turn in Black Hawk Down to his interesting but flawed portrayal of Dr Banner in Hulk, I dint see why a lot of critics hailed him as the next big thing. Munich does not make me think he is a star, but it does make me think he is a damn fine actor.
Bana plays Avner, a Mossad agent and leader of a five man hit team assigned to track down and kill anyone connected with the murders of 11 Israeli athletes by the Palestinian terror group Black September during the 1972 Munich Olympics. Brief plot synopsis aside, this is a film that manages to avoid politics and moral certainties. Directed by Steven Spielberg, there are no easy answers about right and wrong and Spielberg deftly manages to avoid the obvious pitfalls of sermonizing, action and thrills in favour of intelligent plotting and tension so high it is almost unbearable in places.
Coming across as a hybrid 70's political thriller of the type John Frankenhiemer used to do so well, the assassinations (a nice euphemism for state sponsored murder) are carried out against cold, grey European cityscapes and neon streaked apartments. Avner is a family man, with a young wife and new born daughter, and is torn between love for his family and love for his country. To fill the gap his enforced removal brings, the team become his surrogate family, with Avner acting as mother as he cooks expansive, extravagant meals as the team discuss the next hit.
Aside from Avner, the other team members are all excellently realised as well. Geoffrey Rush as Ephraim, Avner's handler, is mesmerizing, a steel hard man who barks orders he expects to be obeyed without question. Kieran Hinds as Karl the methodical clean up man and Daniel Craig as a fiery fellow agent also put in top notch performances. Other supporting roles are nicely fleshed out, with ex Bond villain Michael Lonsdale particularly memorable as Papa, a Gallic mystery man who may or may not be an intelligence agent (despite his claims to serve no country), providing the team with info about their targets and explosives to carry out the hits.
This is a film that could so easily have been divided into two halves (the massacre of the athletes and the subsequent Israeli response), but Spielberg avoids this lazy technique by weaving the massacre into the film via three or four outstanding and deeply affecting semi-flashback sequences. Sticking to the basic facts, Spielberg uses a certain amount of artistic licence to fill in the blanks, something he has taken some unjustified criticism for, and exaggerate certain scenes to heighten the tension and drive home the moral ambiguity of what the team are doing.
As the team grow more and more distanced from their original mission statement, the sense of moral isolation grows as does the sense of paranoia (watch Bana taking his room apart as he searches for booby traps in the very places he and his team have planted them in their targets rooms) and dislocation (Bana's face crumbling into tears as he hears his daughters voice for the first time over the phone).
Ultimately both sad and tragic, a tale of young men killing other young men for no good reason other than flawed religious/ political ideology, this is a deeply affecting experience that will stay with you long after the final credits have rolled.