“Munich” Directed by: Steven Spielberg

Starring: Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Ciaran Hinds, Mathieu Kassovitz, Hanns Zischler, Ayelet Zurer, Geoffrey Rush

Rated: R (for violence) Running time: 181 minutes

Best suited for: Those who see war as the least of any acceptable solution

Least suited for: Anyone expecting a glossy, stylized “Hollywood” action-packed adventure

Much ink has already been spilled about numerous inaccuracies in Steven Spielberg’s “Munich,” a brutal and realistic, although overly long, interpretation of an Israeli “assassination squad” sent to Europe to eliminate Palestinians believed responsible for the1972 Olympic massacre.

Whenever a film, biographical or factual in nature, plays for the masses, people forget that exactitude ceased with actual events. Even véritéis more style than truth. The most staunch biographer, camera in hand for actual events, is biased by what the camera is unable to capture or fails to witness, even by what ends up on the cutting room floor.

Those going to see “Munich” should understand that the film is a compilation of events that occurred after Palestinian terrorists killed 11 Israeli athletes in Munich. This is Spielberg’s darkest film to date— in many ways the antithesis of “Schindler’s List,” which carried with its carnage the unwavering thread of hope. In a sense, “Munich” is a film without hope, with only a steadfast determination to perform evil—government-sanctioned murder—at whatever the price, at whatever the sacrifice. Is terrorism fought with terrorism the civilized world’s only answer? If so, I suspect that we, as Spielberg undoubtedly believes, are in great peril.

“Munich” is not an easy film to watch. Its reflection of reality occasionally overwhelms the senses. If you feel compelled to see “Munich” to understand Spielberg’s reason to make such a brutal commentary, then view it as an anti-war film. As the nature of war has changed, so has the nature of the anti-war film. One will undoubtedly leave the theater with the knowledge that the Arab-Israeli conflict is not winnable, although who had reason to assume differently before viewing the film?

What Spielberg does, however, is disseminate the violence into personal, candid, bite-size morsels. Up close and personal, death is far more terrifying. Eric Bana plays Avner, the leader of a clandestine Mossad assassination team who, after more than a year in the field, becomes haunted by the memories of the people he kills. Avner ultimately realizes that some of his victims may not have been as uncompromisingly evil as he was led to believe.

Yet those in charge try to appease him, tell him the mere suspicion of guilt is reason enough. And like any good soldier, Avner obeys and more people die. Ordering a death is far less horrendous that committing the deed. One understands why very few generals are ever killed in battle. Perhaps, if the generals were first onto the fields of battle, we would have far fewer casualties, far fewer wars.

There is little wrong with Spielberg’s filmmaking. “Munich” is stylistically haunting and spellbinding—even more so when you realize, to some degree, the events depicted are based on fact. There were, by several accounts, many botched attempts by Mossad squads, even the murder of an innocent man, before an intended target was eliminated. “Munich” does not include these failures. But Spielberg does depict the initial ineptitude, the fears and concerns of five seemingly ordinary men drawn together by fate, asked to accomplish a terrible task.

As for bias—it is inherent in any film, no matter how noble its intent. It begins with the filmmaker’s choice of subject. One can ask why Spielberg chose to humanize the Munich massacre and not the Palestine Riots and subsequent Jewish massacres in 1929. Why not the Palestinian massacres at Sabra or Shatila in 1982? Why not the aftermath of The Balfour Declaration of 1917, England’s clearly nearsighted authorization of a Jewish state in Palestinian territory? Why not the Six Day War or even more recent events? The Munich murders were only a fragment of horror in an ongoing war spanning most of a century.

In the film’s final scene, the camera pans to the World Trade Center and lingers, a reminder that whatever “success” the Mossad achieved in 1972 was hardly successful at all.

The conflict has only escalated, the casualties grow and the madness continues.