Munich

Charting (briefly) the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics at the hands of Black September and (much more fully) the Israeli government's response to it (in the form of sending out Eric Bana's hit squad to kill supposedly legitimate 'terrorist' targets), this was the first film I've seen in a good while and, unfortunately, something of a disappointment. Despite some interesting moments, the story doesn't sustain itself and the film ends up dragging. Its biggest flaw, however, is its complete lack of characterisation. The characters are very two-dimensional and the acting is largely unimpressive although, to be fair, there is very little in the way of an acting challenge on offer here. Even the dependable Eric Bana (so good in Chopper) ambles through this in perfect harmony with the dozy, disjointed, nature of the film.

Further, it's a movie that can't really seem to decide where it's going or what it's trying to be and it ends up playing like a simple action movie. Given the choice of subject material and the (badly mishandled) more thoughtful moments I can't believe this was what Spielberg was aiming for. It's a film that simply doesn't know (or possibly hasn't even thought about) its own morality and it goes quite badly off-kilter as a result. The characters just flit from one revenge killing to another without so much of a thought as to whether they are doing the right thing or not. Is someone who has spent the past two years (or whatever it was) translating the Arabian Nights into Italian really a legitimate target for a counter-strike? It was very hard to see who the bad guys were though I didn't honestly get the sense that was what Spielberg and co were going for, at least the direction was just not subtle or nuanced enough to even suggest that. And the editing was, as with Minority Report and parts of AI, simply atrocious meaning the development of narrative and story becomes desperately unbalanced. This has been a sad theme of Spielberg's more recent efforts.

And yet, a little bizarrely, the film had something about it which I can genuinely not put my finger on that kept my attention held until the end. Perhaps it was the odd spirituality which, at times, I did find interesting. I can't honestly put my finger on what it was but something held me in my seat for the 2 and a half hours or so and I'm not sure the treatment of the material (though, it must be said, not the material itself) really deserved that. Still, I'll never be able to repay the debt I owe to Spielberg (no matter how many of his ropier films I sit through) for giving the film-watching public the sublimely perfect Jaws.

A generous C-