After Black September's assassination of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972, Prime Minister Golda Meir okays a covert operation to hunt down and kill all involved. A team of five gathers in Switzerland led by Avner, a low-level Mossad techie whose father was a war hero and whose wife is pregnant. It's an expendable team, but relying on paid informants, they track and kill several in Europe and Lebanon. They must constantly look over their shoulders for the CIA, KGB, PLO, and their own sources. As the body count mounts -- with retribution following retribution -- so do questions, doubts, and sleepless nights. Loyalties blur. What does it mean to be a Jew?Written by
<jhailey@hotmail.com>
Atlantic Productions, producers of BAFTA-nominated documentary Munich: Mossad's Revenge, listed several discrepancies between Spielberg's film and the information it obtained from interviews with Mossad agents involved in the operation. It noted that the film suggests one group carried out almost all the assassinations, whereas in reality it was a much larger team. Mossad did not work with a mysterious French underworld figure as portrayed in the book and the film. The assassination campaign did not end because agents lost their nerve but because of the Lillehammer affair in which an innocent Moroccan waiter was killed. This is not mentioned in the film. The targets were not all directly involved in Munich, which Spielberg only acknowledges in the last five minutes. The murder of a female Dutch assassin depicted in the film, as well as in George Jonas' book "Vengeance", went unacknowledged by the documentary, implying that it is completely fictional. See more »
Goofs
While having dinner after they killed the female assassin, the team says they killed six of their targets; they had killed seven.
In fact, the team says they had killed six of their targets AND one replacement. Which is what they had killed: six of the list of eleven and the replacement of one of them (the KGB contact). See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
American Athlete:
Hey! Oh! Shame, shame! Closing down the beer garden. 100 meter dash powered by knackwurst and lager.
American Athlete:
Where are you guys from?
American Athlete:
What is your event?
See more »
Des millions d'amoureux
Written by Franck Barcellini (as F. Barcellini) & Pascal Bilat (as P. Bilat)
Performed by Georgette Lemaire
Courtesy of Mercury Records France, a division of Universal Music S.A.
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises See more »
Another dip in the Spielberg pool and I come away drenched in emotion. I was a freshman in high school in Texas during the Munich games. I was stunned by the events and understood little.
Today, I am still stunned by Munich and every terrorist act that followed, but I understand so much more and grieve. Spielberg gives us a powerful glimpse into the meaning of home, family, honor, history, ethics, and faith. The movie is not about the Jews and Arabs. It's about human beings. It's about us.
The narrative is driven by our connection to Avner. We watch as Eric Bana opens himself up in a way that the likes of a George Clooney in Syriana only dreams of.
This is a must see.
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Another dip in the Spielberg pool and I come away drenched in emotion. I was a freshman in high school in Texas during the Munich games. I was stunned by the events and understood little.
Today, I am still stunned by Munich and every terrorist act that followed, but I understand so much more and grieve. Spielberg gives us a powerful glimpse into the meaning of home, family, honor, history, ethics, and faith. The movie is not about the Jews and Arabs. It's about human beings. It's about us.
The narrative is driven by our connection to Avner. We watch as Eric Bana opens himself up in a way that the likes of a George Clooney in Syriana only dreams of.
This is a must see.