What's the matter with 'Munich'?

Universal finds itself scrambling for an Oscar nomination, saying political pundits obscured the film’s quality.

By Rachel Abramowitz, Times Staff Writer

Can a movie be Swift-boated?

That's what the makers of "Munich," one of the year's most provocative titles, are asking themselves as the Steven Spielberg film struggles to find firm footing in a fast-moving Oscar race. Despite mostly good reviews, a handful of award nominations, and the cachet of one of the town's top directors, the film, Spielberg's historical narrative about an Israeli Mossad team hunting down the Palestinian perpetrators of the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre, finds itself jostling madly for one of the best picture Oscar berths, with hopes that the all-important Oscar nominations will shore up its, so far, middling box office.

"Unfortunately, the political pundits who took swipes at the movie very early on set the course for the movie that's been difficult to overcome," says producer Kathleen Kennedy. "That was set by people who hadn't seen the movie, speculating what the movie was. That's been frustrating. We always knew, given this subject matter, there were going to be people who were not going to be open to a discussion. Unfortunately, they've found a louder voice than the people who've supported the movie.

"We live in a time where there is a very loud and strong right-wing constituency that is hellbent on suppressing any of this kind of dialogue. I've just been surprised at Hollywood and our own industry. It reveals more conservatism than I thought was there."

http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/cl-et-munich23jan23,0,5957865.story?coll=cl-home-more-channels

I haven't. Just asking because I have read a few articles about it so far and from the articles, it seems that Spielberg tried to take a balanced approach to the issue. I am not disagreeing with you, since I haven't seen it. I'm just wondering if the MSM has gotten this one wrong in your opinion.

Hardly. You see both sides and you leave wondering which is the right way to go: to go after and punish those responsible or to favor peace and dialog. Many of the conversations that they have in the movie could be applied to 9/11 and the events of today. It's a very thought-provoking film and it's very well done! I have a feeling that it's been swift-boated because it does show both sides and these questions are so relevant today and Bush & Co would rather we didn't think for ourselves or consider questioning anything.

Heroes of which terrorists? The Black September terrorists, or the assassins who hunted them down?

The bad guys are obvious, but we are allowed to see them as people, not simply stereotype bad guys, and we see the good guys morphing into the very thing they are fighting against.

How does that show terrorists to be heroes?

I read George Jonas' book "Vengeance" years ago, and want to see how Spielberg adapted it to the big screen. There was a TV movie version of it years ago called "The Sword of Gideon", I think.

It's a fascinating story, unless you happen to be a Moroccan waiter working in Norway.

Sid

Perpsective, please.
The Mossad tried every which way to ascertain the identities of their targets and to eliminate civilian deaths.

To excuse the murder of the innocent waiter by pointing out the murders of the innocent Isreali athletes. That's not perspective: it's moral relativism, and it stinks.

By mistakenly killing an innocent person, the program failed, no matter how just or noble the cause might have been.

Sid

Edit: perhaps "killing" in the above should actually be "targetting". But would an accidental death of an innocent bystander be any less wrong?

Isn't that what civilized nations allegedly do?

They don't go off half-cocked and kill people unless it's an accident.

I think that's the rub.

They can blame political pundits all they want, but the truth is that it's just not a very good film. People were excited about this thing until they saw it.

..and while none have said it was a "bad" film, they were all largely underwhelmed by it.

long, and more bloddy than I needed to get the points. As said above Stever was very level-handed and tried to set perspective fro each side of the battle. I'm certain that has many on the right pissed off.

`.... is that the premise that Israel agonized over whether to retaliate is false. A member of the Mossad has publicly stated that they had no reservations, none, about going after the perpetrators.

I believe him, and I believe that making a film with this sort of revisionism is less than laudable.

and while Israel or the Mossad, as institutions, may have no reservations that doesn't mean that some of the people doing the job didn't. And those people who did have reservations, who did realize that they were becoming terrorists themselves, would have been edged out in the ever-widing spiral of terror/retaliation/terror, leaving the decision making in the hands of the most radical on both sides.

I thought that was the point of the movie.

ago. Steven Bauer was great.