"The world was watching in 1972 as 11 Israeli athletes were murdered at the Munich Olympics. This is the story of what happened next."

The previews to Munich led me to believe that this was going to be another of Spielberg's heavy-handed message movies, loaded with melodrama. Actually, it's much more of an espionage thriller along the lines of a John Le Carre novel. There is melodrama and there is a message, but it is delivered in a very palatable manner and in a way that never detracts from the story.

While the title of the film is taken from the location of the 1972 Olympics, where 11 Israeli athletes were taken hostage and later killed by a terrorist group known as Black September, that event is told very quickly and the main thrust of the plot deals with the aftermath of that tragedy. In response to the murder of their athletes, the Israeli government sets up a top secret hit squad, charged with the assassination of the masterminds behind the Munich terrorist act.

The team of hitmen is lead by Avner, played by Eric Bana. I've never really been a fan of Bana's, as his acting always seems so stiff, but here he delivers a solid performance as a man caught between loyalty to his country and his own conscience. At first he is able to satisfy himself that the deaths he is causing are justified, but as they continue and he sees each leader he kills being replaced by someone else just as evil, he starts to question the quest that has been set for him.

Supporting Avner is a ragtag group, none of whom, apart from Daniel Craig (the future James Bond), you would ever guess by their appearance, to be an assassin. Like Avner, they're just doing a job for their country. While the entire cast is superb, to my mind, it is Ciarán Hinds who delivers the Oscar worthy supporting performance as the skeptical member of the group.

Reportedly, Spielberg rushed this movie into development in able to have it released in time for Oscar consideration this year. Nothing in the film suffers from this, apart from perhaps needing one more edit. The movie runs 2 and a half hours in length, and while the first hour, which is the most action packed, flies by, the remaining hour and a half does drag in parts and at times seems repetitive.

One thing the movie does not skimp on is gore. When someone is shot, or blown up, or stabbed in the forehead, it is shown in graphic detail. It's a dirty job that these men are asked to perform and their actions are in no way sanitized for the screen. And although at times they might question why they are doing this job, they rarely hesitate to perform it.

More and more recently the marketing of movies seems to be separate from what the movies are actually about. Munich, while busily advertising itself as a weighty Oscar drama (and I won't lie, the movie does carry weight), is failing to show that it is also an intelligent spy thriller. Perhaps the most intelligent since 1965's The Spy Who Came In from the Cold.

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No Scott. This is another of Spielberg's heavy-handed message movies, loaded with melodrama. Spileberg's point in this movie is to comment on violence and the reaction to violence. He humanizes the Palestinians and the Israeli terrorists. He shows that they have families and lives outside of their murdering occupations. He has a scene where a Palestinian explains why he is fighting for a "home." Spielberg claims during an introduction on the DVD that he did not actually take sides with this movie. What a joke!

In his attempt to be unbiased he forgot to humanize one very important group; the innocent athletes who were ruthlessly murdered in Munich. These men were not soldiers. They were not assassins. They were the innocent victims of a bunch of cowardly terrorists who prey on unarmed civilians. With that in mind you cannot be unbiased when dealing with the subject of terrorists.

The Palestinian terrorists chose to attack innocent victims who had nothing to do with them directly. The Israelis responded by killing the men who masterminded the attack and murders. That is not even close to being the same thing. The murdered athletes are given no back story or even any discernable dialogue. They are just victims who died. The terrorists are married with children and are fighting for a cause. The point of terrorism is to shock and awe people into seeing the terrorists point of view. To see them as victims who are just fighting because they have to. Thank you Mr Speilberg for assisting the members of the terrorist group, Black September, in getting that message out.

Speilberg shows Avner as a man who struggles with being an assassin and a married father. The scene of him having sex with his wife while thinking of the athletes being murdered is far to strange to make sense. I don't even want to meet the man who can perform sexually while visualizing that. Speilberg wants very much for Avner to be as human and sensitive as possible. Avner just comes across as a contradiction. One minute he kills an unarmed naked woman and the next he questions why he is killing the head of terrorist organizations. One minute he compartmentalizing his actions and the next he is all emotional about it. A man this sensitive should not be an assassin.

Having a bleeding heart liberal like Speilberg direct an unbiased movie about terrorism is like having the conservative Reverend Jerry Falwell make a biased movie about gay marriage. Both are too predicatable to be interesting.

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