movie: Munich

My recent rampage continues with Munich, screened during a visit to the Fiend's stomping grounds.

First comment- it was too GODDAMN long.
I can usually peg exactly how much fat a film needed to trim from the runtime, but measurement was addled by the bro in law's habit of pausing the film to rant, rewinding the film to see cool parts again and making us watch the first 15 minutes of War of the Worlds about halfway through.
The movie felt like it was 4 1/2 hours long, but IMDB claims it's under three.
2.5 would have been spot on, so it needed to lose 25 or 20 minutes.

It was pretty good, especially for one of Speilberg's 'serious, important' Oscar-bait movies. It had some great scenes and set pieces, the acting was uniformly excellent, the casting was spot on and Eric Bana earned forgiveness for the abomination that was The Hulk.

But Spielberg can't resist peppering a film with flashy "look at me, folks...ain't I clever!" directorial flourishes. That kind of gimmicky stuff is great in a movie with rampaging dinosaurs, dashing & heroic archaeologists or plucky children helping out their alien pal...it doesn't come off so well in war films, movies about the Holocaust or cinematic explorations of Israeli/Palestinian dilemma.

Bloated runtime and irritating bits of directorial business aside, it was a good watch. It was, of course, as much a story of post-9/11 America as it was a story of the Olympic massacre or Israeli/Palestinian relationships. The screenplay by Tony Kushner (Angels in America) handled the multiple levels of meaning with a deft touch.
I can see why it wasn't widely popular since the philosophical vision of the film takes something of a "pox on both their houses" approach.

The rationale for Israel's existence is forcefully made, but the end just as forcefully drives home the creator's viewpoint that the policies of the Israeli government have turned their back on what should be the guiding principals of it's population.

And it doesn't take a bloodhound to sniff out the parallels with our current situation here in the good ol' USA.

There is the seed of a great film here...but one with a different director, and made outside the Hollywood system.

Still, worth a watch. Flawed but interesting.