Munich: Review By MovieWiz001

Well today (December 4, 2010) I went to Target for Christmas shopping and I found this movie, Munich, and I was surprised because, I always wanted to watch it, so we got it. Steven Spielberg is my idol, and I love many of his films (I haven't seen them all). After watching this, I was amazed. This was such a good picture. It's one of the films that I highly recommend.

And I did notice that it's inspired by real life events. Although Munich is a work of fiction, it describes many actual events and figures from the early 1970s. On the Israeli side, Prime Minister Golda Meir is depicted in the film, and other military and political leaders such as Attorney General Meir Shamgar, Mossad chief Zvi Zamir and Aman chief Aharon Yariv are also depicted. Spielberg tried to make the depiction of the hostage-taking and killing of the Israeli athletes historically authentic. Unlike an earlier film, 21 Hours at Munich, Spielberg's film depicts the shooting of all the Israeli athletes, which according to the autopsies was accurate. In addition, the film uses actual news clips shot during the hostage situation.

The named members of Black September, and their deaths, are also mostly factual. Abdel Wael Zwaiter, a translator at the Libyan embassy in Rome, was shot 11 times, one bullet for each of the victims of the Munich Massacre, in the lobby of his apartment 41 days after Munich. On December 8 of that year Mahmoud Hamshiri, a senior PLO figure, was killed in Paris by a bomb concealed in the table below his telephone, though the film depicts the bomb being concealed in the telephone itself, other details of the assassination (such as confirmation of the target via telephone call) are accurate. Others killed during this period include Mohammed Boudia, Basil al-Kubasi, Abad al-Chir, Zaid Muchassi, some of whose deaths are depicted in the film. Ali Hassan Salameh was also a real person, and a prominent member of Black September. He was killed by car bomb in Beirut in 1979.

The commando raid in Beirut, known as Operation Spring of Youth, also occurred. This attack included future Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yom Kippur War and Operation Entebbe hero Yonatan Netanyahu, who are both portrayed by name in the film. The methods used to track down and assassinate the Black September members were much more complicated than the methods portrayed in the film; for example, the tracking of the Black September cell members was achieved by a network of Mossad agents, not an informant as depicted in the film. So yeah.

This was really entertaining and I loved the directing and the camera shots. And as always, John Williams did a great job, composing this film, to capture the mood of every scene he does. it also had some pretty nice effects and it's really gory like that bombing scene. It was so gross looking at the bodies everywhere.

The movie was also very well acted. Eric Bana did a really good job, so did Daniel Craig. My favorite scene of the movie was the killing spree in the airport because, it was shot so well and especially the composing. Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay, to me, has the master shots. To tell you the graphic scenes in this movie, all I can tell you is that 'viewers discretion is advised' .

Now I must find 'Schindler's List'. That's the movie, I'm dying to watch. So seriously, I highly recommend this movie. It's now standing as my 5th favorite movie (December 4, 2010).