Sunday 16th August

Munich

Director: Steven Spielberg
Year: 2005
Stars: Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Geoffrey Rush

I'd read mixed reviews of this. Most reviews had been vaguely complimentary, but not seemed to think it was amongst Speilberg's best work. I have to say, I agree with them. Whilst the story is interesting (if long), the film felt, at times, really pretentious, and the ridiculous amount of unnecessary endings didn't help.

The film is based around true events that helped at the Munich Olympics in 1972, when terrorists shot the entire Israeli Olympic team. The film starts here, and investigates how the Israelis retaliated.

If the point of the film is to make you think what a ridiculous war the Palestinians and Israelis were having, it succeeds. For a lot of the film, you just want them to stop killing each other and accept that fighting won't solve anything - something more than one character admits to believing. However, this could well be the Western Spielberg talking, and many Arabs may believe it paints too black and white a picture of their history.

Not a bad film - it does make you think, but sometimes the thinking isn't very deep, and often it's just a wish that the director would stop bludgeoning you over the head with his brilliance. Yes, Spielberg has done some amazing films, but this isn't one of them. Brilliance needs to be more subtle than this.

Rating: 3 out of 5