A thriller in the classic mold, this film upsets complacencies and offers no easy answers.
By:Bob Brown
Steven Spielberg’s powerful action film is a collaborative effort with script writers Tony Kushner (Angels in America) and Eric Roth. It is based on Canadian journalist George Jonas’ 2005 book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team. This focuses on one Israeli hit squad’s operations, following the events of September 1972 at the Munich Olympics.
In that month, members of a small terrorist cell, Black September, broke into the Olympic Village in Munich, Germany, and kidnapped 11 Israeli athletes. The ordeal ended tragically after all the hostages and one German policeman were killed at an airport during a bungled attempt to free them. Several of the hostage takers escaped.
What happened next was driven by Israel’s perceived necessity to show the world that they would not take this lying down. Israeli planes bombed PLO camps. A squad of counter-terrorists was formed by the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, to hunt down and kill those who were responsible for the Munich kidnapping. This marked the beginning of what would become regular operations by Israel to target and eliminate key terrorist figures.
In the film, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (Lynn Cohen) says, "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values." This sets the tone, as she opens what later was dubbed "Operation Wrath of God," or Mitzvah Elohim. As such, the movie is a drama, surrounding this state of mind the Israelis’ moral dilemma.
Israeli films have struggled with this problem already, most notably Eytan Fox’s Walk on Water (2004), in which Mossad agent Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi) is assigned to befriend the children of an aged Nazi whom he must assassinate.
In Munich, Avner (Eric Bana) is a bodyguard whom Golda Meir personally chooses to lead a four-man assassination squad based in Europe. All are regular Joes like himself: Steve (Daniel Craig), Carl (Ciarán Hinds), Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz), and Hans (Hanns Zischler). They are given a list of targets and a money drop to supply them until the job is done. The only requirement is that they not contact the agency or their families in the course of the operation.
Implausibly, Avner is a family man whose young wife, Daphna (Ayelet Zorer), is about to have a baby. In the real world of targeted assassinations, the worst person for the job is someone who might be susceptible to emotional pressures and family distractions. As the calculated operation proceeds and reality weighs heavily on Avner, he is torn between events at home and the heavy demands of the job, both physically and psychically. He turns from a warm compassionate young man into a burned-out shell.
Another unlikely scenario is that Avner relies solely on one family of freelance intelligence merchants, headed by the patriarch "Papa" (Michael Lonsdale). Since Papa sells information to anyone, the killings begin to pile up on both sides, as if the opportunities for extra income are too great to resist. What starts as a well-oiled operation begins to fray at the edges. More targets are provided, and the mission is spread out. Mistakes are made, explosive supplies are not delivered in the strengths specified, agents are careless.
But among the grave wounds suffered by the Mossad crew are those to their sense of moral identity. Robert, the bomb maker, despairs that he is now giving up the very soul that distinguished Israel from its enemies. This is in contrast with the actual words of Israeli General Aharon Yariv, planner of the operations: "I approach these problems not from a moral point of view, but, hard as it may sound, from a cost-benefit point of view… Is it morally acceptable? One can debate that question. Is it politically vital? It was."
The movie is more nail-biter than documentary. From the start, it has been criticized. Some faulted Spielberg for his choice of sources. Jonas’s account is accused of having holes, because he based his "facts" on information supplied by Yuval Aviv, a man whose credentials have been questioned.
Spielberg is aware of the criticisms and acknowledges that he never contacted Zvi Zamir, head of Mossad at the time, to verify the facts.
He and Tony Kushner, co-scriptwriter, reflected on their approach in an interview with Los Angeles Times reporter Rachel Abramowitz: "If the film had any point at all," said Kushner, "I think where Steven and I met most, is you can’t approach this situation with a notion of simple right or wrong. This makes a lot of people very upset. Murdering athletes is a horrible thing, and it’s wrong, absolutely. But one of the questions is, why did that happen? What kind of horror produced this horror?"
Why make this movie when others have already covered the events? The point is not to cover the events themselves, but to cover the effect of such a policy on a nation. This focused drama gives a name and a face to what is a general condition. Avner is in place of the average Israeli on whose behalf he operates. The audience can identify with him.
Spielberg said in the L.A. Times interview: "I just wanted to put empathy in every direction, because the situation is not cut and dried. I was not interested in telling that kind of a tale of vengeance and I didn’t want this to be a morality play, the way that ‘(Saving) Private Ryan’ is a morality play."
Spielberg’s film upsets complacencies. It is about a complex situation with no easy answers. But it is of a piece with other lush Spielberg works, including camerawork by frequent cinematographer Janusz Kaminski and score by John Williams. It’s disturbing to be sure. But it’s also a thriller in the classic mold.
Rated R. Contains strong graphic violence, some sexual content, nudity and language.