Munich

I had the pleasure of watching Munich two days ago. It has taken me about that long to mentally digest this movie. It might not take some people as long as it took me to talk about it but sometimes you see something and want to put it out of your mind. But it stays there anyway.
Kind of like a splinter where the skin has grown over it so you have to dig it out....or post on a blog about it to exorcise it.

When I was a kid I remember things like Jim McKay talking about his coverage of the Munich Olympics years after it happened. It literally was one of the things that made me take an interest in politics, like the Bobby Sands hunger strike. After I had a better grasp on what actually happened and learned the motivations behind such a horrible event it made me ask the same questions people asked at the time only years later.

Munich was an extremely powerful and moving film. Yeah a film, not a movie. If you saw it you would be able to tell the difference.

Now everyone is familiar with the premise and since the actual files are top secret no one really knows the real story of what happened. So this is a fact based fictional account of what likely happened after the 1972 Olympic Massacre.

Munich puts a human face on the assassins. It examines the nature of revenge, it gives them feelings and eventually plunges them into paranoia as they question if they are doing the right thing or not. It is not a political film even though it is a subject that could come off as preachy or condescending if not handled correctly. That is about as close to a spoiler as I'm going to get in this post, which also lends itself to shorter posts as I don't write as much.

Eric Bana does an outstanding job. It just so happens that he is also the biggest name attached to the acting core of Munich. And this is a film that is directed by Steven Spielberg and a score by John Williams! Daniel Craig probably will be big after he debuts as the new James Bond but that is a ways away and he really isn't a household name yet.

If you watch Munich prepare yourself. I doubt if anyone could watch this movie and not be moved in some fashion.

Munich is as violent as it is powerful. Munich is beautiful and it is sickening.

Watch it, you won't regret it.