It was an amazing movie, a great balance of drama and action.

Eric Bana did a terrific job, as well as everyone else.

For those of you who have seen it,  the scene on the house boat has to be one of the most disturbing things I have seen in recent months.  I am still shocked.  I know she deserved it, but watching it was disturbing.

The only part that I did not care for was the ending, when the scene was split between Bana and his wife and the events at Munich.

But overall it was excellent.

What was your opinion of the movie?

I read an article that said the movie was sympathetic to the terrorists and Spielburgh was trying to draw parralels between Munich and the modern War on Terror.  Did you see get any of that from the film or was the article BS?  Either way I will still see it.

I'm going to see it at 4:30...

I'll report back with a breif review...

tag wanna hear some more reviews i think i may see it tonight  or Kong

I just got back from seeing it, and to be honest I wish that I hadn't.

It wasn't sympathtic towards the terrorists in any way, and I didn't see any parallels between Munich and the GWOT (other than they made the point that killing there is always another terrorist to take the place of the one you just killed).

It was a long movie with alot of boring scenes and anti-climactic soul searching. Most of the assassination scenes were good, but the scene on the house boat ruined the entire movie for me. In my opinion there was absolutely no reason to include it, especially not in the way that it was done. I was/am extremely disturbed by that scene.

Having seen it, I wish that I hadn't and I will not see it again. I would recommend seeing something else. I didn't think that King Kong was all that great, but I would have gone and seen it again instead of Munich had I known what was in store.

I wonder if I'm the only one who's ever seen "Sword of Gideon", which is a very good, fairly long movie about the exact same thing.  Avner's there, along with Carl, the driver, the weird guy, and the explosives expert.
I loved this movie.   There was a lot of tension, and I found it totally gripping in its involvement with the characters, and painful as they paid such high prices for their efforts.
I assume the 'houseboat' scene involves the killing of the assasin that kills Carl fairly early in the movie (if the plot lines are quite similar).
Sword of Gideon, even though no one seems to remember it exists or that speilburg is trodding down territory that's already been explored, is an excellent movie.

I thought it was a great movie...

I feel that the movie captured why we are different than "Them" in the first assassination...

The movie is politically motivated but, there is really nothing that will set true conservatives on fire...

I recommend it!


ETA: There is a lot of gun-play and shoot-out scenes...

Quoted: I wonder if I'm the only one who's ever seen "Sword of Gideon", which is a very good, fairly long movie about the exact same thing.  Avner's there, along with Carl, the driver, the weird guy, and the explosives expert. I loved this movie.   There was a lot of tension, and I found it totally gripping in its involvement with the characters, and painful as they paid such high prices for their efforts. I assume the 'houseboat' scene involves the killing of the assasin that kills Carl fairly early in the movie (if the plot lines are quite similar). Sword of Gideon, even though no one seems to remember it exists or that speilburg is trodding down territory that's already been explored, is an excellent movie.

No your not the only one. "Thats been done before" was what i first thought of  and the movie "Sword of Gideon" came to mind. I believe it went straight to video when it came out or was one of those made for HBO movies. I liked the scene in SOG where toward the end they came  to the realization that they were being tracked by the terrorists and picked off as well. Good movie.

Quoted: Quoted: I wonder if I'm the only one who's ever seen "Sword of Gideon", which is a very good, fairly long movie about the exact same thing.  Avner's there, along with Carl, the driver, the weird guy, and the explosives expert. I loved this movie.   There was a lot of tension, and I found it totally gripping in its involvement with the characters, and painful as they paid such high prices for their efforts. I assume the 'houseboat' scene involves the killing of the assasin that kills Carl fairly early in the movie (if the plot lines are quite similar). Sword of Gideon, even though no one seems to remember it exists or that speilburg is trodding down territory that's already been explored, is an excellent movie. No your not the only one. "Thats been done before" was what i first thought of  and the movie "Sword of Gideon" came to mind. I believe it went straight to video when it came out or was one of those made for HBO movies. I liked the scene in SOG where toward the end they came  to the realization that they were being tracked by the terrorists and picked off as well. Good movie.

Yeah, I brought it up in the other thread about this movie, but couldn't remember the name.

Quoted: None of the reviews I have read have even mentioned sword of gideon. Wonder if Spielberg doesn't want to be known for doing a remake.

I dunno, he didn't seem to mind for that little picture he did earlier this year, "War of the Worlds"

I had also noticed that the old movie appeared in no reviews whatsoever.   I wonder if it is just that obscure.  If I've seen it, you would think Roger Ebert has, so I'm curious as to his review when it comes out.  As of the last time I checked, he still had not reviewed it.

what happened on the house boat, (dont say just go see it) i will watch it when its on dvd, just give me some gory details!!

Quoted: what happened on the house boat, (dont say just go see it) i will watch it when its on dvd, just give me some gory details!!

SPOILER



A naked female assassin is assassinated on a house boat....

(Full frontal nudity)

The three main characters use suppressed AOWs (Somwhat like a flash-light gun) and shoot her three times.

She graphically chokes from her own blood and is shot in the head to finish her off...

She is left dead and uncovered on the house-boat.

More about this vile movie

Steven Spielberg's Moral Equivalence

By JAMES BOWMAN
December 19, 2005

Are Jews better people than Arabs, or Israelis than Palestinians? How could anyone possibly say - even if it were not a question that could only interest someone engaged in some kind of insane ethnic competition? Yet this question lies at the foundation of Steven Spielberg's new film, "Munich."

A semi-fictional account, "inspired by real events," of efforts to take revenge for the slaughter by terrorists of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics of 1972, "Munich" attempts to place at the center of a drama of nations one individual's emotional maunderings. The question his hero asks seems not to be whether his actions are right, or justified, but how he can continue to think of himself as better, more sensitive, more high-minded than others.

"Munich" is never less than watchable. Mr. Spielberg is a filmmaker of genius, almost incapable of doing anything unoriginal or uninteresting on screen. But when he tries to think - and especially when he reaches after profundity, as in "Munich" - he can only think in cliches. Here are a few of the conventional ideas served up by Mr. Spielberg and his screenwriter, Tony Kushner, in "Munich" as if no one, or at least no one in Hollywood, had thought of them before:

* Revenge is an uncivilized, savage act that lowers the revenger to the level of his victim. As a result, there is always a certain moral equivalence between killer and victim.

* Engaging in revenge perpetuates a cycle of violence.

* Those who are caught up in this cycle and who kill in cold blood often suffer terrible agonies of conscience: nightmares, paranoia, substance abuse, and other manifestations of what we have learned to call post-traumatic stress disorder.

* From governments of all kinds, corruption, violence, and lack of human compassion is to be expected.

* Therefore, one should put loyalty to one's family and friends ahead of loyalty to one's country.

This is a trick Mr. Spielberg has tried before. In "Saving Private Ryan" he showed little Matt Damon in front of the war graves in Normandy, questioning whether or not he was a good person - as if the deaths of so many men and the massive global project of defeating the Nazis had all been for the sake of little Matt and his precious self-esteem.

The same disproportion between the psychic struggles of his heroes - important to them, no doubt, though not so obviously important to the world - and political and military events of world-significance is evident in "Munich."

"I'm no good at being noble," says Rick (Humphrey Bogart) in "Casablanca," "but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." So noble does his gesture seem today that we may forget he really meant it - and this is what gave that film its power.

Now our hero, a Mossad agent called Avner (Eric Bana), takes the opposite course to Rick's, starting off in selfless devotion to a cause and ending by opting to give the priority in his life to his own concerns: his family and his private struggles with his conscience. Is this supposed to be equally moving?

Avner severs his connections with the Israeli government in order to head up the private - "officially unofficial" - vendetta against those who aided and abetted the Munich terrorists. Also on his team are the hot-headed South African, Steve (Daniel Craig); the nerdy technician and bomb-maker, Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz); the mild-mannered antiques dealer, Hans (Hanns Zischler), and the man whose job it is to worry about covering their tracks, Carl (Ciaran Hinds).

Throughout, the film is punctuated by Avner's meetings with Louis (Mathieu Amalric), his mysterious French source of information on the whereabouts of the terrorists. When things begin to go awry and the wrong people to die, the question of Louis's loyalty briefly arises, only to be dismissed.

Perhaps, as Louis has introduced himself as a man of no political loyalties - he is "ideologically promiscuous," as he puts it - he is too close to what is emerging as the Spielbergian ideal to be a plausible villain. Louis even takes Avner home to meet his papa (Michael Lonsdale), a wise old bird who pronounces a bit prematurely the film's message, namely that all governments are not to be trusted, and that the only thing that matters is family.

"The world has been rough with you and your tribe," papa says to Avner; "it's right for you to be rough with it." But Avner himself is beginning to have doubts. The bomb-maker, Robert, first articulates them. "All this blood will come back to us," he tells Avner with an agonized look. Being Jewish to him means being righteous, and just lately he's not been feeling too righteous.

Neither, apparently, has Avner, for he soon severs relations not only with his Israeli contact, Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush) but with Israel itself and joins his wife and child in Brooklyn. "How do you know they were involved in Munich?" Avner says to Ephraim of his victims. "We should have brought them back to Israel for trial, like Eichmann."

A little late in the day to be proposing that, you might think. But thus is suggested the answer to the all-important question of who is the better person, Arab or Jew, Palestinian or Israeli. Mr. Spielberg's answer is that it's the Jews - or at least this Jew - because although both Jew and Arab kill without mercy, this Jew feels really bad about it afterward.

Mr. Spielberg makes this point directly when, after the murder of their first victim, the gang have a discussion about whether or not it is right to celebrate. Celebration is okay, Avner says judiciously, but not rejoicing. Then they watch on television the jubilation of the Arabs over the return of some other terrorists after their latest atrocity, and Steve can't help noticing: "No qualms about rejoicing on their side. Look at them," he says. "They're movie stars."

Too true. And, he might have added, in that observation lies the reason why a consummate filmmaker like Steven Spielberg made the film he did. For the movies demand the kind of moral equivalence he so obligingly provides. All that matters to the camera is emotion, and in emotional terms there is no right or wrong, terrorist or victim. All are victims together.

It's not the movies' fault. That's just what they do. But it is a reason why a movie about the most serious and important moral and political matters should only be made by someone who is much more than a moviemaker

I'd like to see this movie.

Complaints from both sides about the fairness of the movie, and the Palestinian who helped plan saying stupid things:

abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1445237

It's a good movie, but the end was kind of.... eh, not as good as I had hoped, but I guess this isn't the sort of guns blazing huge shoot out climax at the end type of movie.

The scene on the houseboat wasn't the only hard part to watch, there are others like the Isreali olympians being taken hostage...

Saw it last night...LOVED IT!

Quoted: Saw it last night...LOVED IT!

+1

I thought it was excellent. Bana did a terrific job, and it is probably Speilberg's best work. It was very true to the original book with very little Hollywood BS.

I beleive the houseboat scene was SUPPOSED to be disturbing.  Remember that the operators portrayed were closer to regular guys than ninja assasins.  The scene is meant do describe what they have become.

The recurring theme throughout is that violence breeds violence.  In the end, it seems hard to blame one side over the other.  The closing shot contains powerful imagery of the WTC in the skyine.  I imagine they had to add it using computer graphics.

Great movie overall.

Quoted: I beleive the houseboat scene was SUPPOSED to be disturbing.  Remember that the operators portrayed were closer to regular guys than ninja assasins.  The scene is meant do describe what they have become. The recurring theme throughout is that violence breeds violence.  In the end, it seems hard to blame one side over the other.  The closing shot contains powerful imagery of the WTC in the skyine.  I imagine they had to add it using computer graphics. Great movie overall.

THIS is the message that Spealshit wanted to make.  Looks like you fell for it.

Quoted: I read an article that said the movie was sympathetic to the terrorists and Spielburgh was trying to draw parralels between Munich and the modern War on Terror.  Did you see get any of that from the film or was the article BS?  Either way I will still see it.

Article was BS to me. I didn't see anything like that.

Quoted: None of the reviews I have read have even mentioned sword of gideon. Wonder if Spielberg doesn't want to be known for doing a remake.

It isn't necessarily a remake.

If two artists paint the same building, did one copy the other?

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: None of the reviews I have read have even mentioned sword of gideon. Wonder if Spielberg doesn't want to be known for doing a remake. It isn't necessarily a remake. If two artists paint the same building, did one copy the other? In the movie world, yes. It is disingenious to not even mention sword of gideon at all.

Should Spielberg have also mentioned Byron Haskin?

Should Tod Browning have mentioned Murnau?

Speilberg mentions that his film is based on the book "Vengeance", which is what "Sword of Gideon" was also based upon, and that is enough.

Quoted: [ Speilberg mentions that his film is based on the book "Vengeance", which is what "Sword of Gideon" was also based upon, and that is enough.

I agree that it's not speilbergs responsibility to directly mention 'Sword of Gideon'.  That should be up to knowledgeable movie reviewers, who seem to be dropping the ball.  However, it's definitely a 'remake'.  Would the remakes of  "the thing", 'invasion of the body snatchers','the fly',' and assorted others not have been remakes if they had been titled differently?

Like it or not, spielberg is treading exactly where another director went 20 years ago, and it sounds like Munich is very similar to Sword of Gideon, perhaps with a bit more gore.

I'm sure it's a good movie, but then, I thought Sword of Gideon was great.  Painfully suspensful, and hard to stop watching.