Munich released recently is directed by Spielberg. It is engrossing, the kind of film about which you would say “It moved at the pace it should have”. Munich tells the story of Israels’s action against the 11 people who planned to kill/killed it’s Olympic athletes (1972). The job of asssinating the 11 Palestinians is given to Avner (Eric Bana), leadin a team of 5 men. Geoffrey Rush plays the part of Ephraim, their lone contact. The men are made to “dissappear”, that is if caught, the Israeli government would have no knowledge of the operation. The job can take months or years.

Avner with his team travels around the world, eliciting information from Louis (French actor Mathiew Amalrac), and planning and executing the people on the hit-list. His first kill is hesitant, but as time goes by, inhibitions fade.

Based on George Jonas’s book “Vengeance”, Munich enters the realm of fiction, where interactions and other details are concocted to give dramatic impact. But the characters are well-fleshed out and act well, especially Bana, who portrays the moral disorientation of an essentially patriotic man, when the lines blur, and the difference between a life less or a life more is unclear.

Spielberg presents both sides of the story, giving rational dialogue to the Palestinians as well as the Israelis. Yes, the film is made of unfolding events, and the emotional and mechanical details that make them. But conflict is what this film is about – how we define it and what it does to us.

A must-see.

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