Munich

An important piece of film that should be seen by everyone.

I thought that this film should have received an Oscar.

This thought-provoking film examines the terrorist attacks on the Israeli Olympic team during the 1972 summer games.

The film is loosely adapted from the book, Vengeance, by George Jonas.

This is Steven Spielberg's greatest and most important work since Schindler's List.

Eric Bana plays the son of an Israeli hero who is commissioned to kill the Palestinian terrorists responsible for the massacre. Bana is the leader of four other guys who were chosen to carry out the mission. The movie feels like a real life Mission: Impossible.

The movie, however, is very compelling. We can see that the small team of five is very patriotic in the beginning. They also seem reluctant to kill another human life. After their first kill, they seem to be losing their reluctance. They seem to become jaded and tougher. They still continue to struggle though. After watching the news, they can see that more Israelis are being killed in retaliation for their killings of the Palestinians.

Are they doing the right thing? Are they accomplishing anything? Will this help peace or make things worse?

We can see that Bana had to choose between serving his country and being with his pregnant wife who was about to give birth to their baby girl. We see the internal turmoils he was going through as he traveled most of Europe in hunting down the killers. He broke down in tears as he heard his baby daughter say, "Dada" over the phone.

Killing Palestinians was also a very expensive endeavor. It costed about $300,000 per kill. Most of the money went to a seedy French mafia who provided the intelligence to them.

Towards the end, we can see Bana breaking down with paranoia. He's worried that someone is hunting him and his family down.

This movie is great in that it shows the human drama behind what must have happened. They even showed some of the Palestinians' side of why they were killing Israelites. The Palestinians felt that they were being killed by the Israelites. They want to set up a country of their own, Palestine. Israel didn't have a country of their own for many years. Palestinians are going through the same thing now that Israel went through before.

This movie wonderfully displays the consequences of kiling. We see that killing is not the answer. Revenge only breeds more revenge. Things seem to only escalate after each killing.

The good: Powerful, thought-provoking.

The bad: Went a little long. The story may have been too dramatized.

The verdict: An important piece of work that shows the consequences of killing.

My rating: A, 92.