18th Favorite Movie - Munich

Make sure you have read the first post in this series ("My 50 Favorite Movies") before you read on...

Message to Bethany:

Sorry hon, the final Spielberg movie to make my list is not your childhood favorite, E.T. Nothing personal against your beloved long-necked, flashlight-fingered alien, but I've only seen E.T. once and that was when I was in the third grade. But I do want to watch it again with you sometime!


Something that my wife realized years before me is that Spielberg is a genius. I had always thought highly of Indiana Jones and Saving Private Ryan, but a couple years ago after rewatching Jaws and then seeing Munich in the theater, I realized how big of a Spielberg fan I am. I really like Duel, Close Encounters, Jurassic Park, Amistad, Minority Report, War of the Worlds... I just have such confidence in his work, when I watch one of his films I just know that I am in good hands (except for A.I., but that was probably due to Kubrick's influence on that project).

Munich, released in 2005, is about Israel's response to the 1972 hostage situation at the Olympics when 11 Israeli athletes were killed. Spielberg uses this situation to pose some serious philosophical and theological questions: when is it justifiable to take a life? Does violence just beget more violence? How does being Jewish affect the life of a soldier who is paid to assassinate people for his country, which was founded to be God's light to the nations?

The acting in this film is terrific. Eric Bana turns in his best performance to date in the lead role. Daniel Craig plays his partner and shows why he was picked to be the new James Bond. Geoffrey Rush plays his shady supervisor. I think Geoffrey Rush is a very underrated and versatile actor. This guy is hilarious as Barbosa in the Pirates movies, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1996 for Shine, and he has been nominated twice for Best Supporting Actor (Shakespeare in Love, Quills). He even provided the voice for the pelican Nigel in Finding Nemo! He should get more attention than he does.

I don't want to spoil the movie by talking about the plot much, but know that it is deep, dark, and a bit depressing. The film ends with an intense conversation between two characters in New York with the camera framing the World Trade Center in between them in the background (remember, it takes place in the 70's). The shot makes you wonder... is Spielberg suggesting that the events set into motion at the 1972 Olympics somehow led to the tragedy of 9-11? Or is he just making a general statement about the massive casualties when nations war against one another? I'm not sure, but I will always think of the last shot of this film as one of the most powerful in the history of cinema.