Probably the best film I saw this year, and that includes King Kong.
Munich is inspired by actual events regarding the action taken by Israel to avenge the assassination of their athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics by the Black September group. Make no mistake, this film does not take sides, as it manages to criticize both the Palestinians who had a hand in the massacre, as well as the Israeli government with the methods and means they took in extracting their revenge. The film manages to touch breifly on the whole Palestinian situation, in a very interesting set of circumstances.
This is by far one of Speilberg's most mature works, toeing the line that he set for himself with Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, and he manages to elicit some of the best performances of the year from Eric Bana, Daniel Craig (yes, as in the next James Bond), Geoffry Rush (whose final line is absolutely chilling), Mathieu Kassovitz, Ciaran Hinds and a list of others.
The story tells the Munich massacre in a series of flashbacks that continue throughout the film, showing the world watching, but also in the form of nightmares that plague Avner, the Mossad assembled hit squad leader, played fantastically by Eric Bana. The story shows the resolve by Golda Meir, who selects Avner herself, who works as an officer in the Mossad, and at one point, served as Meir's personal bodyguard. Right from the start the price of the duty assigned is a very high one - Avner needs to resign from his position immediately, leave his very pregnant wife who's due for birth in the very immediate future and operate above and beyond all his bosses, one of them memorably played by Geoffry Rush.
The team is quickly assembled, consisting of a South African gun handler (played by Daniel Craig), a toymaker who doubles as a bomb maker (played by Mathieu Kassovitz), an antique dealer/master forger and the Cleanup man (played by Ciaran Hinds), who verifies the targets and ensures that collateral damage is minimal.
Munich on the surface has the pacing of an action film, but with a very raw sense of how the action sequences unfold. The targets are unusual to say the least, and the team struggles with the lack of proof or any involvement with the whole Munich incident, hinting at the possiblity that the intelligence they have is deeply flawed and that their purpose is to serve a much darker goal.
The characters are human through and through. Action scenes and tasks carried out are often sloppy, messy and in some cases botched, while the group struggles with the guilt of what they are doing, the righteousness of their actions and more importantly, the Black September's response to each of the assassinations carried out. The cycle of violence that comes from this, suggests the hopelessness of extracting revenge from a sworn enemy, who is equally resolved in avenging the violence taken upon their people. Combine this with Avner's worries of the safety of his family and the realization that his own team is in far deeper danger than any of them could ever have imagined.
Munich is a very thought provoking film that examines the motives and consequences of revenge, with one of the most powerful final shots I've seen in some time. It's a very timely film that does allude, in my eyes, very subtly towards the current "war against terrorism" stance and attitude that dominates the western mentality concerning foreign policy.
Go see this.