Tracing cycles of terrorist violence in ‘Munich’

Steven Spielberg simultaneously shocks and engages viewers with a combination of insightful story plots and realistically brutal killings in his new film, “Munich.”

Millions of TV viewers around the globe watched the events surrounding the kidnapping and killing of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes by Palestinian terrorists in Germany in 1972. “Munich” focuses on Israel’s reaction to this fatal attack on its countrymen.

Avner (Eric Bana) readily accepts his top-secret assignment, without asking questions. He and four other men are recruited to hunt down and kill the 11 men responsible for the Munich massacre. In the beginning they are armed only with their desire to serve their country honorably. They are given more than enough money to finance their mission, but developing the necessary skills terrorist assassins require is left up to them to learn on the job. The experience radically alters and changes them as human beings, in unforeseen ways.

As “Munich” progresses and evolves, it takes both the five-man team and the audience on a dangerous mission into an unfamiliar but well-structured world of terrorist acts. Who gives the orders? What system is in place to help Avner locate and set up his enemies? How are the assassinations carried out? Why and how does the mission extract such a heavy emotional price? When and under what circumstances do Avner and his team loose sight of their orders in order to seek their own revenge?

Where and what is Avner left with when the assignment ends? Avner’s methods of eliminating human targets evolve with each man taken out. Any failure to learn from their mistakes will cost them their lives. It takes constant adjustment, and each modification creates unintended consequences.

Shifting from guns to bombs as their weapons of choice eliminates one danger but creates several other potentially lethal problems. Finding and trusting reliable informants presents its own life-threatening risks. A father and son team, Papa and Louie, help Avner locate targets. But they also may be helping the team’s enemies locate and eliminate them.

Blindly obeying orders to kill begins to create doubts and cause friction among the team members. Meeting and talking to their targets before killing them is taking an emotional toll, exacerbated by the deaths of innocent bystanders who get in the way of the bombs and bullets. The experience finally erases all traces of Avner’s innocence and any preconceived notions he had about man and humanity.

“Munich” effectively communicates the senseless horrors of terrorism, with its unending cycles of retribution. The emotional effects on those who seek and extract revenge indicates there is a heavy, nonrefundable price to be paid for participating.

The emotional damage, however, is one-sided in “Munich.” For all the killing they have done, only Avner and his men are affected by their own actions; they are unable to sleep, to know whom to trust, to keep each other safe or to face themselves in the mirror. On the other hand, their enemies kill with satisfaction, have bodyguards for protection, party late into the night and sleep well. Because Avner and his men feel bad about their actions while the other side remains unaffected, it presents the notion that there is a right and wrong side separating the opposing terrorists.

Munich is one of this year’s better stories. Terrorism is a new film genre, and this movie reveals a still-unfamiliar world, teeming with dramatic and attention-grabbing plots and subplots. It presents the reality of assassination in a harsher and more graphic light, stripping away the glamour and tidiness that is the stock and trade of action films and prime-time television. This movie also gets people talking. “Munich” is worth the full price of admission at your local movie house.

* PEGGY J. ROGERS produces commercial videos and documentaries.

20051229h0g0znke(LA)