Customer Reviews

Munich (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)

5 star:		(132)
4 star:		(93)
3 star:		(47)
2 star:		(32)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

Attempting to understand what drives people to kill other people for any reason is, in the pit of the soul, a challenging enigma. Whether that 'reason' is war between countries at odds, protecting one's self when endangered, revenge or vengeance for deeds perpetrated by 'the other', for panic in the moment of survival - each of these feels wrong despite the fundamental belief to the contrary at the moment of killing. MUNICH is about killing, about vengeance, about protection of 'home', about existence in a world so bifurcated by age-old schisms, and about us. And while absorbing all of the 2 1/2 hour plus visual and philosophical information put forth in this epic film, the viewer is so paralyzed by the story that blinking for a second seems irreverent.

The tragedy of the 1972 Olympics - the brutal kidnapping and murder of eleven Israeli athletes by masked Arab/Palestinian marauders - is brought to the screen with brave and gutsy realism by a brilliant script by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth based on George Jonas' book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team, directed with straightforward, no-nonsense sensitivity to all participants by Steven Spielberg, and brought to life by a cast that simply could not be finer. From the opening of the film sans credits with the Black September act of breaking into the Olympic games in Munich, the film moves swiftly through the formation of an anti-terrorist league of Israeli assassins whose job it is to hunt down the killers and murder them, to the final painfully unsettled end. This is all under the instruction and guidance of Golda Meir (brilliantly played by Lynn Cohen) and her advisors.

The team of Avner (Eric Bana), Steve (Daniel Craig), Carl (Ciaran Hinds), Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz), Hans (Hanns Zischler), and Mossad Accountant (Oded Teomi) are instructed by Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush) and stripped of their identities to enter this mission. They roam the world based on information purchased from a secret group led by Louis (Mathieu Amalric) and Papa (Michael Lonsdale). Gradually growing into the roles of assassins the group begins to murder each of the perpetrators until their success is noticed by all manner of secret agencies (including the American CIA) and the tables are turned: the lives of the Israeli assassins are as endangered as those of the Arab murderers. In a particularly touching moment in the dark, Avner and a Palestinian soldier debate the need for the state of Israel and the opposite need for holding onto home by the Palestinian: it is a moment of writing that sums up the entire Israeli conflict.

The cinematography by Janusz Kaminski and the music score by the always fine John Williams add dimensions of atmosphere to this dark film, but it is Spielberg doing what he does best in directing attention to moments in history that will never be buried that makes this phenomenal movie an emotional experience for everyone, no matter their political or religious beliefs. It is simply a brilliant film about the need for Home - that sacred place whether internal or external that maintains the reason to live and even to die for it. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, May 06

What could you expect from a two and a half-hour picture based on actual events and telling about Israeli government avenging their olympic team members killed by palestinian terrorists during Munich Olympic Games of 1972? Well, not a breathtaking, action-packed thriller, that's for sure. I thought it would be long, boring, didactic and over the top pompous. Even the presence of Steven Spielberg's name in the credits couldn't inspire me. Now I'm glad I was wrong on all counts. Yes, it was long, but of that kind when you wish a film had never ended. It's neither boring nor didactic nor pretentious.

Young Mossad agent Avner (Eric Bana) is given a task to eliminate the members of "Black September" terrorist organization with the help of a group of fellow agents. And that's what they do during two hours and a half of the screen time - locating and killing Palestinian terrorists one by one. "Munich" could become one of the many political thrillers about confrontation of different countries' intelligence services. It could raise some serious questions of historical importance and be overly-political. But Spielberg did an amazing thing with this global story - he transferred it to the personal level. So this story turned out to be not about countries, governments and intelligence services but about ordinary men. A country's vengeance was laid upon one man's shoulders, and that's how we see it - through his eyes. Along with him we will question the righteousness of his task, we will doubt, we'll see how a revenge appears to be ineffective and reasonless (as it always happens) especially if it's a revenge in a global scale: terrorism is like hydra - you cut one head off and two more emerge in it's place. We see how Avner who dedicated his work and his life to the country he loved ends up feeling useless and knowing that from now on his life is in danger. Furthermore he understands that for the sake of some illusive goal he put at risk the lives of his loved ones - his wife and child. "Munich" is the story of another zealous man who was grinded by the millstones of big politics and governmental interests. And finally this story leads to an eternal conclusion that you can't beat violence with more violence. You can deteriorate everything, unleash something you couldn't imagine in your worst nightmares, but you can't defeat violence doing the killings yourself.
Steven Spielberg demonstrated his immense talent again taking this epic and well-known story, drawing some ordinary people out of it and still making grand and philosophical conclusions.
Great film - awesome acting performances, brilliant cinematography (as always by Janusz Kaminski), interesting subject, entertaining yet thoughtful story-line, clear message which is at the same time not obsessive or annoying - prime Spielberg I'd say. Definately one of the best pictires of the last year undeservingly unmarked by the Academy award.

"Munich" is a fictionalized account of a secret Israeli mission to assassinate key leaders of the Palestinian Black September faction that was responsible for the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany. The film is based on the 1984 book "Vengeance" by George Jonas in which a former Israeli Mossad agent claiming to have been the leader of a squad that killed 7 Black September targets told his story. Mossad has never confirmed the story, and Jonas admits that it is impossible to know how much his source may have exaggerated, but director Steven Spielberg tracked the ex-Mossad agent down and was apparently satisfied that the gist of the story is true. The dialogue and characterizations are fictionalized for the movie, however, which makes me wonder why Spielberg cared so much about veracity. "Munich" claims only to have been "inspired by real events", and that should be taken literally. Though these assassinations did take place, "Munich" alters motives and personalities so thoroughly to suit its themes that the film is essentially fiction.

After the world watches in horror as 11 Israeli hostages die at the hands of a group of Palestinians who had tried to use them to win the freedom of 200 imprisoned compatriots, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (Lynn Cohen) decides that Israel should show its strength and avenge the deaths of its citizens. A Mossad security officer named Avner (Eric Bana) is assigned a team of 4 men, provided with a clandestine method of receiving funds, and given a list of 11 Palestinians living in Europe who are targets for assassination. The team is set adrift to carry out its mission, officially unacknowledged by Mossad. They move from nation to nation tracking down the targets, killing them, preferably with bombs, frequently turning to a mysterious information dealer (Mathieu Amalric) to locate the men on their list. But the violent deaths of prominent Palestinians in Europe doesn't go unnoticed. Anti-Israeli violence escalates, and the hunters become the hunted.

George Jonas hates "Munich", because he feels that Spielberg fails to distinguish between terrorism and counterterrorism. Palestinians may object to the implication that Mossad meted out justice to those who planned the Munich debacle, when actually the targets were prominent members of Black September who may or may not have had anything to do with Munich. The assassinations were intended to serve as a deterrent to future violence against Israelis. Steven Spielberg has said that his intention in "Munich" is to highlight the dilemmas and issues incumbent in fighting violence with violence, not to oppose that approach, but to caution that it is easy to get a bad result. He has invented conversations and radically altered personalities to that end which, unfortunately, leave Avner and his comrades without a shred of credibility. Avner is portrayed as a man nearly paralyzed by a crisis of conscience. His team members are contrived to represent different aspects of his conflicted psyche. But assassins do not have crises of conscience. They believe unfailing in what they do. The conversations that these men have reflect the internal dialogues of the filmmakers. But Mossad agents are not liberal Hollywood intellectuals. They don't think like that.

The characters aren't credible, and therefore the film isn't either. Avner's behavior doesn't even make sense within the context of the plot. He is the flakiest assassin ever. "Munich" is not so much morally ambiguous, even-handed, or provocative as it is simply muddy. It's so ineffective that Spielberg needed to explain his ideas in an introduction on the DVD. As to the film's relevance to anti-American terrorism today, it doesn't have any. Black September was a secular organization in a land dispute, much like the IRA, FLN, or Chechen separatists. Its leadership were educated, liberal, and pro-Western. Al-Qaeda are religious fanatics with no specific grievance and nothing to lose. Palestinians will think "Munich" gives the Israelis too much credit for scruples. Israelis will think that it posits a moral dilemma where none existed. The fact that "Munich" doesn't please either party doesn't make it a good film. Speilberg's ideas may be worth considering. But putting equivocation and moral anguish into the mouths of professional assassins is a lazy, unconvincing way to convey those ideas.

The DVD (Universal 2006 single disc): There is an optional introduction by director Steven Spielberg (4 1/2 min) in which he talks about developing the film from the book "Vengeance", what parts of the story are indisputable, and his intentions with the film. Subtitles are available in English, SDH, Spanish, and French. Dubbing is available in French. German and Arabic dialogue is subtitled by default, but the white subtitles are difficult to read. DVS (Descriptive Video Service) is available to describe the film's visual elements for the visually impaired.

This film is required viewing for everyone who loudly calls for bombs dropped while listening to Toby Keith and quoting Sean Hannity.

"Munich" is somewhat slow to develop after the opening sequence showing the abduction of the Israeli athletes. I felt I was being indoctrinated with sympathy for the poor suffering Israelis, who everyone hates and can't catch a break. However, Spielberg gradually breaks away from that mode and slowly develops an engaging, suspenseful thriller.

Spielberg creates a very simple "good guy/bad guy" conflict as the mission to exterminate members of the Palestinian terrorist group responsible for the Munich Massacre. As the mission progresses, questions get asked and issues are debated. Eventually the audience is left to question their own beliefs about the nature of reaction and retribution.

The film ends with a brilliant speech that reflects the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, yet reflects other conflicts, as well as our current conflict with Iraq and the much larger "War on Terror". Spielberg leaves us with a very haunting image of the World Trade Center as the characters discuss the process of action and the inevitable vengeance that follows, questioning whether every action needs a reaction. I was reminded of the saying, "An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind."

This film is entertaining, suspenseful, thought-provoking, and above all else, important.

I have to give the director, producers, actors, and screen writers credit for taking on an ambitious project that is destined not to please everyone. There are both strengths and weaknesses to the film.
First, the strengths, of which there are many. The film does a relatively admirable job of portraying historic events, while maintaining the pace of an action thriller, while integrating thoughtful dialogue regarding the cyclic nature of revenge. The events at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich were shocking and stunned the world. The Black Sunday group, associated with the Palestinian Liberation Organization, conduct a kidnapping and mass murder in front of the entire world. The film does an exceptional job of capturing this horrific series of events. The film also does an admirable job of capturing the political dialogue between Golda Meir and her cabinet after the events. The cast is exceptional with Eric Bana playing Avner, the assassin, with considerable depth and skill. Bana's performance was superb. Avner is joined by a team of collegues who help him track down 9 of the 11 terrorists or those who planned the event. Geoffrey Rush is excellent as Ephraim, the team's only contact with the Israelis. Daniel Craig as Steve and Ciaran Hinds as Carl are outstanding. The French informant, Louis, played by the French actor Mathieu Amalric, is great. The dialogue is excellent, much of it written by the very talented Tony Kushner. It is the dialogue that is interwoven with the action sequences that pushes the film to a higher motive. The scene where Eric Bana, acting as if he is a German, dialogues with a young Palestinian about the claiming of Israel by both the Jews and the Palestinians. Of course this is no James Bond thriller where everything goes as planned. In fact, nothing really goes as planned and it is the unexpected that gives the film tension. However the most outstanding change in plot occurs when the team realizes that they may be the hunters but someone is hunting them!

There were two issues that kept me from giving the film 5 stars. First, the writers decided not to get into a messy group of hundreds of informers and contacts and instead decided to write the story as if some French underground family supplied the team the names, addresses, and iteneraries of all the major PLO terrorist leadership. Whereas this certainly simplified the story, it certainly seems beyond belief. It appeared to be a literary license the screen writers took to cover up hundreds of persons who were involved in this series of revenge killings across Europe. My second criticism is the flashbacks that Avner has throughout the film of the actual events in Munich. Whereas this worked well to continually remind the viewer of the reasons this team is hunting down the PLO planners, leaders, and soldiers; it reached the point of overkill when Avner flashes back to the final minutes where the athletes were killed in the two helicopters. Avner has this flashback while having intercourse with his wife so that the moment of death for the Israeli athletes corresponds with Avner's orgasm. What is the point here? I interpreted this that despite the murder of Jews, they will continue to thrive, defend themselves, and will successfully survive on this earth despite the hatred and prejudice.

At 2 hours and 44 minutes, it is a long film, but will keep you engaged every second!

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not too crazy about the fact that they're charging what is basically a premium price for this two-disc set. I've seen other regularly priced discs with just as many extras, if not more, than this one has so you're probably asking yourself why am I recommending this?

The packaging for this disc is a very nice slipcase edition complete with a great 32 page photobook.

The 80 minutes or so of featurettes are very informative and cover a lot of what went into making the film, as well as details of the actual events of the '72 Olympics. Spielberg usually has a well put together set of featurettes for his films and this disc is no exception. Don't expect a director's commentary as Spielberg doesn't do them. He is gracious enough to provide an introduction to the film and does talk about it at length in the featurettes so, it's not like he pulls a Wachowski Brothers and absolutely refuses to say anything at all.

The disc looks and sounds great and though I would've loved a DTS track, the soundtrack is still thunderous in DD 5.1. In fact, this movie is mainly dialogue driven and is quite low key as a result but the explosions in this movie are downright huge.

As for the movie itself, I feel like it gets better every time I watch it. This movie definitely is not for everyone due to the amount of violence in it but I consider it to be an amazing, powerful film that was wrongly overlooked last year. If you enjoyed the movie enough to want to learn more about it, I strongly suggest going with the limited edition set.

Why Eric Bana, the lead in this movie was not nominated for a Best Actor Oscar is beyond me. His character is very "rich" in the evolution of tracking down the killers of the Munich athletes and his de-evolution as a leading particpant.
Steven Spielberg does another incredible job in putting this film together and oddly enough it is some of the subtles of this movie that have the greatest impact.
For the last several years we have seen history come to life in some outstanding films from Good Night and Good Luck, Walk The Line, to Capote to Munich.
This movie is both sad and revealing, funny at times when the ineptness of the Israel soldiers is exposed. But this is what makes this movie complete; you see the people, the places and the events, warts and all and this movie is by no means one sided. The Palestinian view is expressed here, directly and if you see this film and have no questions as to what man does to man then your emotional clock is on tilt.
More than a piece of history, "films" like this are about people, politics, and the events that lead these people into actions that have results on the players that even they don't expect.
The tragedy of Munich 1972 is something we should all never forget. Everybody knows the "front end" of the events at the 72 Munich Olympics, now see the whole story.

This is the greatest movie I have ever seen(good will hunting close 2nd). I knew about the events that transpired in munich 1972, my mother would occassionally bring it up as I was growing up. Nothing in this world has made and brought me closer to Israel and being proud to be a jew than this movie. The love for there country and to take a mission like this, basically to give up their lives or the only lives they knew for the protection and future of there country. Others may not grasp the concept that Israel is the only Jewish Country in the World, There are numerous Christian and Islamic countries. Theconflict alone of this movie made it great, it was much more complex in the character development and plot, and the rest of the story made it incredible. Should have clearly been the academy award winner for best picture over Crash at the 2006 academy awards. I don't really like to write movie reviews, but every so often a movie comes around like this that it's too great not to be mentioned. This review will be listed under my mothers name, I am her son, Michaol Lucka writing this review

Steven Spielberg could have made a film about the vengeance sought and claimed by Israel for the kidnapping/murder of 11 of their Olympic athletes wherein the avengers are implacable, remorseless, stalwart and unaffected by their actions, and their quarry could have been one dimensional comic book villains with scarves and snarls, and each killing a glorified and audience- pleasing vicarious thrill. In short, he could have made a Chuck Norris movie.

But Spielberg was after something different, a film that is not only a tense thriller, but also explores more fully dimensional characters and what the effects of this type of violence has on the participants. Going beyond a simple revenge plot shoot-em-up required courage and I applaud that. But delving deeper has the result of making more obvious the strengths and weaknesses of such an exercise.

Surely it is no stretch of the imagination to believe that the men carrying out such a mission, which by its nature must be cold-blooded, would be affected by their actions over time. They are being good soldiers, true, but this is off the battlefield, and by definition does not allow passion and fervor to rule. Believing or even knowing your actions are righteous, to carry out executions in the form of calculated murder would wear on any men, lest they be monsters.

The greatest strength of the film is in depicting the difficulty faced by some of the team in doing close-up, face-to-face killing. Spielberg shows us the nasty, brutal horror of violent death, even when "deserved". There are no Rambo-like happy explosions or shootings. Human beings are being killed, and even if they are bad and guilty of their own heinous crimes, their deaths aren't pretty. Even when the act seems justified, neither his characters nor we, the audience, are allowed to bask in self-righteousness about the sordid death of another bad player. It just isn't that simple.

But having raised the question about the consequences of setting out on a path of well-motivated vengeance and the cycle of violence it may engender, Spielberg runs into trouble providing any alternatives or answers. What else could Israel have done? Ignore the murder of their athletes? How do you successfully counter implacable and unremitting hatred directed at you? Can you afford the luxury of trying to "understand" someone who wants to kill you? Or is the cycle of violence and revenge inevitable until both sides exhaust themselves? These are questions that face this nation today, and I don't know the answer and neither does Steven.

In the end when Avner says to Ephraim "Why not arrest them, like Eichmann?" It is a pathetic answer to these disturbing questions. The Eichmann kidnapping to Israel was a one-of-a-kind operation, and possible because he thought he was safe and hidden. Against Black September, it would have been nearly impossible, and even possibly more violent. Having watched the Germans casually release the 3 Olympic terrorists they held to end another hijacking, I doubt trust in jail terms would be high on the agenda. Hell, the Olympic athletes were taken hostage and eventually murdered over the demand for release of Palestinian prisoners already in Israeli jails!

At any rate, I find this film admirable for its depiction of the soul-numbing result of violence, even violence you can justify. That Spielberg and Tony Kushner get a bit lost in trying to achieve an over-arching theme or resolution to this dilemma is not surprising, as this is the problem of our age and every age that went before us. If the only answer to a violent act is an even more violent response, and it may well be, than the human race has a long and sorrowful future ahead of us. This is not a political opinion, this is a cry from the heart.

For those of you that are looking for the Limited Edition of this film and can't find it...my advice is to wait. I'm also looking for it and recently found it on barnes and noble. I ordered it and recieved it in extremely poor condition (case was bent, booklet frayed). I ordered another one and it was worse. And now...they're out of stock. So to you Munich fans who are dying for this dvd, my advice is to wait until they come back in stock or until Universal releases a 3 disc set which they could considering that's what they did with The Terminal.It's a fantastic movie and it's an even better set. I highly recommend Munich and this edition. It's one of Spielberg's best films.