Munich

If you have not yet seen the film, there may be some spoilers in here for you!  
If you have not seen it, then I shall terrorise you (that’s real bad, sorry)

I hold a great amount of respect for Steven Spielberg, mainly because I cannot stand the hoards of people that seem to think he is an awful example of Hollywood. I mean really… all of his films are usually good and yet most stuck up film students will laugh at someone calling him their favourite director… its stupid that’s what it is.

I knew that I would be going to see Munich as soon as I had heard about it… Spielberg makes some good films, and I was not surprised that once again he had made another.

Directed by Steven Spielberg –of rather large fame- Starring Eric Bana (Avner), Daniel Craig (Steve), Ciaran Hinds (Carl), Mathieu Kassovitz (Robert), Hanns Zischler (Hans), Ayelet Zorer (Daphna) and Geoffrey Rush (Ephraim).

I found Munich to be rather strange with the tons of actors from many different countries and thought it a nice change from just Americans, I thought it was really ‘nice’ to have actors like Mattieu Kassovitz and Moritz Bleibtreu as well as Daniel Craig, Eric Bana and Geoffrey Rush on the side is really unusual for such a high profile film.
Anyway, about the film; its based on the 1972 Olympics, in which the whole Israeli team were taken hostage and killed. The film follows the assassinations of members of Black September, the group that organised the situation. This is all seen through the eyes of Avner (Bana) who leads the team of agents (Craig, Kassovitz, Hinds, and Zischler) to assassinate their targets.

I don’t believe I have any quick opinions of the film, it was interesting, I had attempted to watch Black Sunday once, but it failed to get my attention, whereas Munich had all the pizzazz of a regular Spielberg film, darting across countries, troubled characters, etc.
Judging from the ranges of ages that saw it at my cinema it attracted many people.

What can I say about the actors, everyone seemed pretty top-notch, I didn’t really like Daniel Craig, but that’s probably because he’s British and looks weird, but the performances given by all were pretty much appreciated by myself, though no one stood out as omigod amazing.

As far as I can remember the screenplay was pretty flawless, and thoughtful, little in the way of predictable dialogue, which was very much a plus in a film that could have gone in a completely different direction.

If anything I can say that John Williams’s style sounds really different, whereas in Star Wars and Superman sound very alike, I have recently felt that War of the Worlds, and Munich hardly sounded like him. Although there are composers out there that have stuck to their style throughout like Thomas Newman; you can always tell when he has composed a score, the same goes for Jon Brion.

I can’t say I have seen many ‘assassination’ movies, but of all the ones I have seen I must say I very much enjoyed Munich, I believe most of all I think the flashbacks to what happened to the Israelis were very well received by myself, giving much more character to these 11 hostages, for which the film didn’t appear to be showing much of. The other main bonus of the film was the hoards of great actors, which strangely enough Spielberg’s films are full of.

I cannot think of anything bad… I may just be thinking too highly of it, but at the moment, the film was pretty awesome, although a friend of mine complained that it was too slow, though I did not find this myself. Only bad thing I can think is that the film went too fast! Seeing as the end came rather abruptly.

Overall it was a pretty good film, quite a bit of violence (as a warning) and bombs exploding, so if you are sensitive to that sort of thing, I suppose you should not watch it, otherwise I suspect I would recommend it to anyone.

Cptalbertwesker Rating – 8/10
It was a good film, first cinema experience that made me jump. Only aspects I didn’t care too much for was the old lady behind me that spoke rather loudly and the usher tore my tickets in half!! I had to tape them back together again!