My Take On Munich

I didn't pay, don't worry. Got in free with someone from the Writers' Guild. And boy did he have questions for me after the movie ended. That said, here's my take.

Let's start at the very beginning. Flashing across the screen were the words, 'Inspired by real events.' Why not just say the truth? Inspired -- but it's FICTION. That I could have respected. As my bf said, all people will catch are the words real and events. He's probably right.

The film had fine production values... just a questionable script. In the beginning, they show a bit of what happened in Munich but not all. Yet as I watched it and Hatikva played, I found myself getting very emotional. But a strange thing happened by the end, when they showed what "really" happened to the athletes. The movie had been so violent, just like the characters, I had become immune to the violence and the deaths of the athletes did nothing to me but rather I really saw myself detaching to the point that I was noticing the lightening, the other production parts... I was numb. I'm guessing that was sort of the point, but if I'm not engaged in the film anymore, that's really not a great way to make a point. And it's not like I am one to not lose myself in a movie. Hell, I will lose it at well done commercials. I'm a sap. I love losing "me" and getting so into what I'm watching. So if I had that reaction, I'm guessing almost everyone did. Beak?

The movie was very graphic... very graphic with the killings, with sex, dead naked bodies, etc. I felt about Spielberg doing that the same way I laugh at every former female child star having to get caught partying and posing nude in Maxim. So desperate to shed their former persona that they're shouting, "Look world, I've changed!" Spielberg, you're still simplistic. Showing naked bodies and graphic violence doesn't mean your movie-making has matured. Get over it.

Another thing that bothered me was that Palestinians were allowed to make their case, spew their lies and no one in the movie challenged them! Things like the PLO thug saying things like Israelis spill Palestinian blood, all they want is a homeland, a nation (rather than dead Jews), then one of the Mossad said, "We've acted like Europeans toward the Palestinians! Another lovely moment was when one of the team said the only blood that matters is Jewish blood. What??? What a bunch of propaganda hooey! Now anyone who doesn't know any better is going to think what they said is the gospel. For that alone, he deserves to have his Jew card revoked! (No, we don't really do that but you get what I mean.) And no, Schindler's List doesn't make up for that. Only SS could make a movie about the Holocaust and tell it from a gentile's point of view! Would people have embraced Hotel Rwanda had it been told from the useless white UN worker, Nick Nolte's, point of view??? I can't imagine the African-American community not being up in arms about that if it had happened that way. Anyway, I digress.

Then we get Castro's stooge (SS) saying that the CIA paid the mastermind, Salameh, not to kill American diplomats and when Avner and his men were set to do the hit, 3 Americans messed it up, most likely Salameh's CIA buddies. As far as I know (and feel free to correct me), this is soooooooo NOT true! He really made the US look pretty horrible in this movie. But that shouldn't be a shock coming from Spielberg. I'm sure many of you will have comments about this point!

They were also very big on showing how scared the terrorists were, in an effort to humanize them.

They constantly had people making speeches -- pontificating on SS's liberal, pie-in-the-sky, cycle of violence bullshit. At one point, I leaned over to my friend and asked him, "Isn't this getting a bit redundant (showing each killing)?" He was like, no, he was into it. After the movie ended, he said about a minute after I asked that, it totally hit him and he felt the exact same way. Made me giggle.

All in all, unless you want to raise your blood pressure...take a pass.