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31/01/06
Munich  Overall rating: 60% I can imagine it must be quite difficult to be Steven Spielberg (well ignoring the vast fortune and many accolades he must have!). I mean, the public now have certain expectations of him and his films. Providing entertainment for the masses is not an easy task: too high brow and you lose the common touch, too mass produced and you lose credibility. Munich, I believe, is Spielberg’s way of saying ‘screw the general public, people are stupid!’. Munich tells the story of a team of Jewish Israelis put together to avenge the massacre of 11 of their athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Olympics. Lead by Avner (Eric Bana), the group set about assassinating the perpetrators in total secrecy. If Spielberg does one thing consistently well it is character development; in Munich he creates such a dynamic between the team, that from the moment they all meet each other and are plunged into a life less ordinary you feel every bit of emotion with them. When they are planning, scheming and coming up with more extravagant ways to eliminate their targets, you almost forget they themselves are terrorists and get behind them all the way. Some of the stunts and effects are both terrifying and brilliant – Spielberg can do action like no one else. However all that eventually stops and the film shifts from an audience engaging ‘we good, they bad, let’s kill them’ plot to a more sinister and distant game of who is trustworthy and who is trying to sabotage their efforts. At the end of the day Munich does not know what it wants to be: blockbuster or tense political thriller. There are elements of both, but in such a way that they do not gel. In true Spielberg fashion there is the classic absent father theme – this time in the form of Eric Bana, who does a fantastic job playing what could have so easily been a typical brooding anti-hero. Avner knows what he is doing is wrong, but does it so his family can live in comfort. In fact this is the only mark Spielberg leaves; you could easily be fooled into believing this is another director’s work. The reason I did not enjoy Munich as much as I should have done was because it never fully grabbed my attention, I really don’t know that much about the Israeli-Palestine conflict and from the outset Munich alienates the uninformed. Unlike Schindler’s List, where we all know the history and we all know the good from the bad guys, Munich leaves you feeling somewhat unintelligent. I like to think I can stay with a film long after it has lost all my friends, but Munich trailed off in way that made me switch off about 30 minutes before the end. The only comparison I can make is to Saving Private Ryan, in the same way it pulls you in with an explosive start but then pushes you away as the ending gets less interesting. It seemed like Spielberg did not know how to end Munich and so went with a range of possibilities – each one uncompelling. I can appreciate the effort involved and the performances give the film some real moments of genius, but ultimately it is cold and distant with no real sense of identity. In Summary: The film is sort of like driving my Fiesta (no, stay with me here...): it’s fine when you start it and handles up to 40mph very well, it will happily meander around winding twists and turns, but when it comes to foot-down pedal-to-the-metal kinda action it just can’t seem to get there and leaves everyone a little dissatisfied. |