Director: Steven Spielberg, US, 15, 165min
Stars: Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Ciáran Hinds, Mathieu Kassovitz
On general release
In the Israel-Palestine conflict, Spielberg has chosen to comment on a particularly thorny issue. The film attempts an even-handed message — that violence begets violence, and that retaliation only results in intensification — but it is nonetheless told almost exclusively from the Israeli point of view.
The massacre by Black September terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics opens the film, but it is the aftermath — a covert assassination operation by Mossad agents — that is the real body of the story.
Bana plays Avner, an idealistic Israeli patriot who leaves his pregnant wife to serve a country that will, he is warned, deny all knowledge of his mission. Avner and his team traverse Europe, efficiently dispatching their targets, but doubts about the mission start to fester.
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There are some clunky attempts to suggest the men’s ideological disquiet. That said, and despite a certain political naivety, this is a masterful piece of film- making. But a competently made action thriller is not going to be enough to win over audiences who expect to be offended.
WENDY IDE