BEFORE: That's it for WWII films, but as long as I'm in Europe, I'll watch this film about the killing of athletes at the 1972 Olympics, and the aftermath - and I'm sort of bookmarking the week with Spielberg films...
THE PLOT: Based on the true story of the Black September aftermath, about the five men chosen to eliminate the ones responsible for that fateful day.
AFTER: I don't know, I wasn't really feeling this one. I don't know if I've become desensitized to war and violence, or I'm burned out on movies, or if my mind is just pre-occupied with my lack of progress on buying Christmas presents.
To believe in this film, I think you first need to believe that two wrongs make a right, and I'm just not sure that I do. Yes, it was terrible that Arab terrorists killed Jewish athletes at the Munich Olympics. It was a horrible, terrible, dreadful act. But I'm not convinced that the proper response is for the Israeli government to hire a squad of hitmen to track down the perpetrators and the planners of the attack, and gun them down or blow them up.
How do you condemn one act, but condone the other? At some point, shouldn't the members of the hit squad realize that they have become EXACTLY the type of people that they are trying to destroy? Maybe when innocent people start getting caught in the crossfire?
At one point, the members of the Israeli hit squad are holed up in a safehouse, and another team of professionals shows up, accidentally booked into the same safehouse - so after the Israeli squad pretends to be a German squad, they decide to share the safehouse for the night. The leader of the Israeli squad (Eric Bana) has a political discussion with the leader of the Arabic squad - and of course they disagree. But HOW do you proceed with killing people after you've shared space and had ideological debates?
Then again, I suppose we've all had roommates at one time or another who we would be happy to assassinate...
It was interesting to see a pre-James Bond Daniel Craig as a member of the squad, and it was interesting to see the role of the clean-up man, the man who swings by after each assassination and makes sure there are no stray cartridges or other evidence. Makes sense, as the gunmen are probably too frantic to think clearly at that point.
But other than that, I didn't find much here that I could really agree with.
RATING: 4 out of 10 detonators
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