Oscar -- Glad to have some support and ably given...
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As an action film (and it is that, to me), Munich is technically good and it captured my attention quite easily. But I eventually tired of the And Then There Were None plot no matter how varied the settings and the assassination targets.
I think you grew tired also because of the tedious efforts at presenting self doubt and What a Good Boy Am I dialogues.
Indeed the false flashbacks are one of the crudest, most jarring elements in the film, surely a sign of confused thinking. That final sex scene is an embarrassment. Indeed the "safe house" meeting is preposterous and so is the adolescent squabbling there over music. Compare Munich to something like The Battle of Algiers and you see how inept it is as a recreation of paramilitary terrorist/counter-terrorist activity. Compare it to something like Rififi and you see how clumsy it is as narrative about an illicit team project with conflicting diverse members. It rings a bit false from the start, but being Spielberg, it is also poweful and attention-getting from the start.
Indeed the film is weighted toward Israel from the start, from the choice of subject and calling Munich a "massacre." (Most of the kidnapped athletes died not at the hands of the Palestinians but in the melee with Israeli snipers at the airport.) As the hunt precedes we are periodically given lists of new Arab attacks but none of other Israeli ones on Arabs, as if it was one sided. Israel is seen as the only wronged party.
NOnetheless as I've said to arsaib, I do respect this film and consider it one of the great failures of the year, along with Syriana -- which is more sophisticated and many-faceted but even more confused, or confusing anyway.
Nonetheless I think in some sense Spielberg sincerely wanted to produce a "prayer for peace" and be balanced and express sympathy to the Palestinians, but in his political naivety he thought a few crumbs tossed to them would be enough and didn't see that every scene was pro-Israeli propaganda.
I'll grant you that the action element works well at times. And there is much good stuff, if a bit wasted in the overall context. I particularly liked the French interludes, especially the one where Louis brings Avner to meet "Papa" at their big country house. It's rather overblown, but still quite wonderful, and Michel/AKA/Michael Lonsdale is a marvellous actor who adds tone to the proceedings, as does the always interesting (but here somewhat simplified, with his neutral English and ever-present trademark dog) Amalric. Those interludes were a relief from the tendentiousness and the tension and earnestness which I welcomed and very much enjoyed, but there were not enough of them.
From Jonathan Rosenbaum's year's end list
This is part of Rosenbaum's runners-up list and comments, his slight disappointments still worth mentioning toward the end of his Best-of-2005 list:
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Steven Spielberg may have learned to think beyond Zionist reflexes, but Munich, like Raiders of the Lost Ark, is still supposed to make us feel good about the slaughter of Arabs, though we're now also supposed to feel bad about feeling good.
That's as neatly as I've seen it summed it up anywhere.