Munich

I knew I wouldn't like Munich. I've successfully avoided ever going to see Schindler's List, and I should have done the same here. But having seen the truly superb documentary, One Day in September, which demanded an epilogue, and thinking that I would at least enjoy the Mossad agent thriller part of Munich, I succumbed.

Big mistake. It was stunningly inane. In big ways and in small.

The biggest of the small: The actors playing Israelis speak among themselves in Hebrew-accented English. Give me a break. Either they speak Hebrew with subtitles, or they speak English. Having them speak among themselves in broken English made my skin crawl.

And then to the big things: Does anyone truly believe that the Mossad sends out such amateurs to lead this kind of mission? And most of all, does anyone seriously believe that Golda Meir or any of the top brass of the Israeli intelligence forces devoted even one minute to a discussion of the ethics of hunting down and killing PLO operatives? I can assure you that the only questions on the table were whether it was doable, perhaps whether it would be effective, and how the rest of the world would react. Whether it was justified or not never even crossed the debate, or their minds. Didn't cross my mind either.

And to add insult to injury, even the action sequences in the film, with the possible exception of the Israeli commando attack in Lebanon, were bad. I'm referring here to the first half of the film, after which I left. Since no one has seemed to think that the second half of the film was better than the first, I don't think staying longer would have changed my mind...

BTW, if you'd like to see a really good film about a Mossad agent, see Walk on Water.