Review of Munich (2005) by Radiolady — 20 Dec 2005

[***SPOILERS***] Disappointing story which "re-imagines" 1972 history. The movie is long and poorly plotted. It was hard to follow due to jumping around from one country to another. They had to concoct odd ways of killing these people, not simply SHOOTING THEM.

And then we find out some were NOT EVEN THE TRUE PLO MURDERERS themselves, but other people the Israel group deemed were also bad people. (Really? Why show us eleven pictures and then move to others seemingly not directly involved?) Motivations were blunted and there was so much that was make-believe that it ended up seeming like farce.

(People pointing guns at the enemy, while all holed up at a "safe house," one Israeli bombmaker doing things with toys.) I dunno. I'm a big Spielberg fan, but this was not his finest work, and I surely don't see the film as the best of 2005.

Postscript: This film opens on 12/23/05 here in Portland, Oregon. All I could think of was it's a kind of a weird pre-Chanukah gift. It does not make me, an American Jew, feel better about the state of Israel and the way it may have acted either now or in the past.