Munich review

 Number 649 on the top 1000 films of all time is Steven Spielberg's historical thriller 'Munich.'

Munich dramatises the aftermath of the Munich Massacre where at the 1972 Munich Olympics Palestineans terrorists stormed the Israeli camp and took the team hostage, ultimately resulting in 11 Israeli athletes dying. In response, Israel launched a covert operation to hunt down the Palestineans. The film stars Eric Bana, Geoffrey Rush, Ciaran Hinds and Daniel Craig.

Spoilers

We're starting with the film's most polarising scene which takes place at the conclusion. In my Garden State review, I said that if a director has his characters have a sex scene to show they're in there, they're not in love. Unfortunately, the great Spielberg fell into this trap.

Avner Kaufman (Eric Bana) is the head of the mission to kill the Palestineans. This is an operation which leads to him being apart from his wife for years. At the film's conclusion, he finally reunites with her in the form of a cringy sex scene that is juxtaposed with footage of the Israeli athletes being massacred. Some critics loved it. Others hated it.

I am in the latter camp. It was weird, unnecessary and cheap. It also detracted from the tragedy of the Israelis being killed. I can't even say it was titillation, as there was nothing titillating about it. A strange directorial choice from Spielberg.

He also made strange casting choices. I found Eric Bana less than convincing as the morally conflicted Avner Kaufman - one moment he was steadfast in his commitment to the Zionist state - the next he was questioning everything. Meanwhile, the usually charismatic Daniel Craig was reduced to the odd snappy one-liner.

The pacing was also off - we already talked about the weird sex scene, but clips of the massacre were interspersed through the film. One solid flashback either at the beginning or the end would have been less disruptive to the film's structure. It might also have reduced Munich's overly-long 160 minute run-time.

Odd scene choices, miscasting and bad pacing all contributed to a rare misfire from Spielberg.