In 1972, at the Olympics of Munich, all the world watched as eleven Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists. Golda Meir (you’d swear it’s her, but it’s not, she’s actress Lynn Cohen) calls in Israeli agent Avner Kauffman (Eric Bana) assigned to track down and kill all those involved. And so the story of the aftermath, is what this almost perfectly directed Steven Spielberg movie is all about. Yet as Bana and his posse target and kill more and more people, including some innocent, they come to question a comment Golda Meir makes early on — “Every civilization has to compromise their own values.” Bana’s charcter finds himself questioning his own values as each mission is carried out and he fears for the long term consequences of his personal life and family. “Angels in America” scribe Tony Kushner wrote the well-crafter script, but for those who like political thrillers, you’ll find that this one slightly misses its mark, despite our assassin’s accuracy. It’s got Spielberg qualities of genuine and characater-driven plot (especially a scene where a little girl’s life is at stake and you KNOW Spielberg isn’t going to kill a child) with his Spielberg pedigree. Never the less, the story is a reminder of how terrorism and evil keep a vivid place in our history and in our culture even decades later. Three tiaras.
