The controversy obviously doesn’t stem from Spielberg’s skill as a filmmaker, although perhaps in this case it should.

     A film that should have the technical elegance and emotional impact of
“Schindler’s List” is, instead, a film undone by questionable editing. For those not familiar with the 1972 murder of eleven Israeli Olympic athletes, “Munich” begins by re-enacting the events leading up to their kidnapping and deaths at the hands of Palestininan Arab terrorists.

     Then, after using newscasts for a quick and dirty summary of the terror act’s outcome, it abruptly switches to Avner (Bana), a Mossad agent recruited to lead an assassination team to take revenge on the people involved in the attack. As we watch Avner and his team gradually break down under the strain of carrying out their mission, Spielberg periodically returns to complete the Munich re-enactment. He uses flashbacks masquerading as Avner’s nightmares. They don’t work.

     Seeing flashbacks in the form of dreams begs the question: How could Avner be dreaming about events he never witnessed? If that isn’t enough, the final flashback’s climax is juxtaposed with the climax of Avner having sex with his wife, which is far too cheap a trick for even a sentimental director like Spielberg. Ultimately, though, the flashbacks come across as emotionally anti-climatic. Seeing the flashbacks after being told what they consist of is like seeing the end of a mystery movie long after the killer’s identity has been revealed.

  
     “Munich” is a film whose ambitions get the better of it. Most of Avner’s team are ciphers, individuals fulfilling various roles (bombmaking, clean-up, documents). They are thrown in without even a fraction of the attention given to Avner.

     Beyond its inability to do justice to its ensemble, “Munich” tries to weave in a variety of threads, such as encounters between Avner’s team and the CIA. It’s no “Syriana,” however. All these attempts at injecting strands from a global web of political intrigue reveal a script whose attention wanders a little too easily.

     At least “Munich” is provocative in the moral issues it raises, even if only because of  what people themselves bring into the movie.

     A fashionable accusation is that “Munich,” based on the novel Vengeance by George Jonas, endorses moral relativism. (This is the view that there are no objective moral truths, but truths derived by cultural convention. Thus, different cultures will have different ethics, neither one truer than the other.) But in order for it to do so, it would have to present the Palestinians as equally justified in their acts of terror as the Israelis are in their violent retaliation. It does not.

     There is never a question that the tragic and senseless butchering of the Israeli athletes was deeply immoral. The message of “Munich” is that you can’t take the men out of the evil that men do. However easier it is to dismiss the “enemy” as singularly and irredeemably evil, the fact of their humanity still remains.

     The film’s tragedy is a universal one, namely, that people are capable of inflicting great harm on one another, that despite even the most understandable goals and aspirations (like wanting a home to call one’s own), some choose to rely on monstrous means to achieve them. “Munich” does, however, plead guilty to the charge of humanizing the Palestinians — as well it should.

 

      
      The radical message of “Munich” comes out, then, as a condemnation of violence, a critique of the view that the ends justify the means. Spielberg’s instincts in presenting the film’s violent deaths as brutal and unglamorous are correct: Violence, regardless of how it is served, is an ugly dish.

This isn’t comic book revenge, but something raw and unsettling. Things get controversial because “Munich” doesn’t stop at condemning the Palestinians‚ violence, but dares to ask what price Israelis — all of us, in fact — pay by using violence and perpetuating a vicious cycle.

      Despite proclamations that it is one of the best movies of the year, “Munich” was ultimately disappointing. There are some very strong, dramatic moments, and the cast is first-rate. But the film is too long and unfocused to be truly effective as a cinematic experience. It seems to me that anyone who has followed the heartbreaking eye-for-an-eye violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians already has enough to start asking the tough questions.