Munich (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
Our Price: $103.94
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $19.78 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ciarán Hinds, Daniel Craig, Eric Bana, Hanns Zischler, Mathieu KassovitzDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Arabic (Original Language); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; German (Original Language); Hebrew (Original Language); French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Color, Dubbed, DVD, Limited Edition, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 164 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-05-09
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Universal Studios
Movie Reviews of Munich (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
Movie Review: Munich
Summary: 5 Stars
Steven Spielberg became a most noble director decades ago, and now, over a thirty-year period, he has progressed into a higher standard, a direction in which aging filmmakers rarely go. I can only name two other directors who have followed the same path-Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese-but Spielberg has marinated in excellence for so long that his wide range of films have each become synonymous with his name, instead of the actors who starred in them. He has conducted a number of great films, a number of thought-provoking masterpieces, in which his brilliance as a director has added a counter resonance to the material he works with. He brought us visitors from outer space on three different occasions. He made dinosaurs walk the earth. He told a vivid World War II drama with a heartfelt passion. There will probably never be another director like him.
And now, he has taken perhaps the boldest move of his career, and probably the greatest risk in the history of filmmaking. This move, which can only be described as the kind you make in a chess match, is "Munich," a dramatic thriller that spawns from the film industry at a time in which its historical context is very much alive. This, I believe, is the movie that Spielberg was born to direct, because alien visitors and prehistoric beasts cannot hold a candle to the importance of what he has brought to the screen. As a Jew himself, he has refused to take sides, which would be difficult to begin with since his countrymen have disowned him and since the Palestinians have likewise denounced him. Instead of criticizing and attacking, he chooses to depict and dramatize, showing that, after all, the continuous ongoing conflict will not be settled by fighting and foreign policy, but by agreement and systematic compromise.
There is even something to be said about the attitude that Spielberg has while behind the camera. "Munich" is probably his angriest film to date, while also being his most effective and most powerful. What bubbles to the surface during the story is a graphic critique on terrorism and foreign policy during the last forty years. In context, the lessons that the film teaches us are likely to surface a broad range of emotions in the audience members. We are angry because men, who are, by our definiton, evil, kill innocents. We are saddened because we realize that very little was gained out of the events of the film, and that others may have lost their lives in vain. We are confused by the policies carried out on both sides of the film's struggle. We are frustrated by the different views that the characters hold. If ever there was a film that burdens the audience while also managing to fascinate and engulf, it has to be "Munich." This is one of the best films of the year.
Throughout the film, Spielberg puts a well-developed emphasis on the events that took place during the early hours of September 5, 1972, and, in one of the most dramatic sequences of the year, the days that followed. As the film opens, eight members of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September break into the Munich Olympic Village and take eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage in their dormitory, killing two in the process. As the media covers the chaos, Avner (Eric Bana), a small-time agent for the Israeli government, and his pregnant wife Daphna (Ayelet Zurer) watch the events unfold on television.
Shortly after the incident, with all of the hostages murdered and the terrorists taken out during a bloody airport shootout, Avner is summoned by Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush), a high-ranking Israeli intelligence officer, to take a bold and dangerous mission: assassinate eleven men who were apparently behind the tragedy in Munich. He is accompanied by four other men: Steve (Daniel Craig), an opinionated getaway driver, Carl (Ciaran Hinds), the clean-up man, Hans (Haans Zischler), who can forge documents, and Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz), who is in charge of explosives. These are ordinary civilian men, save for Avner, who, although he is a favor-man for Israel, has been worn down with the responsibilities of a husband and expectant father. Carl, for example, was an antiques salesman and Robert was a toymaker .
Their mission requires them to move across Europe and locate each person on the list, and to do so Avner enlists the aid of Louis (Mathieu Amalric), whose employees can locate anyone wherever and whenever. With the whereabouts of their targets being generally unknown, getting help from an outside source is not such a bad idea, except for the source doesn't align itself with governments or morality. Later in the film, the group gets the idea that Louis and his men are giving away information on Avner's team, and the dynamics of this possibility begin to plague the men with distrust and paranoia.
What makes the film fascinating is it's exploration of the assassinations themselves and what the five men must do in preparation for each of them. After the first target is taken out with guns in the lobby of his apartment, the team decides to move on to plastic explosives because then you won't have to look the target in the eye. One of the film's most exhilarating moments is when the team, having already planted a bomb in the target's apartment, fails to realize that his daughter has re-entered the house after leaving for school. The gimmick works so that when the telephone rings and is answered, the bomb is armed and can be detonated via a remote control. The girl answers the phone, and Carl, who is making the call from a phone booth several hundred feet away from Robert, Hans, and Steve, is immediately stunned by the voice. Hinds' reaction is exemplary acting, but I want you to notice how Spielberg handles this moment. He doesn't emmulate the soundtrack with exhilirating music, but instead allows no sound at all, as Carl and Avner run in desperation to prevent Robert from detonating the bomb.
Moments like these, and countless others, deliver the kind of jolty suspense that you would expect from Alfred Hitchcock. That's what makes "Munich" such an effective thriller, and within it's context are a number of harrowing questions, some of which are asked by the characters themselves. Why must a country compromise it's own values in order to defend them? Are these targets really linked to the Munich massacre? What evidence is there against them? What is being gained out of this? When the Palestinians begin to fight back around the world in response to what Avner and his men are doing, the answer is probably very little. What becomes more important to Avner than the success of his mission is the safety of his wife and child, whom he moves to Brooklyn in order to assure their safety. But as the mission progresses, and as it becomes more dangerous than anticipated, the Munich massacre and it's aftermath begin to haunt Avner's mind mercilessly.
What Spielberg is doing here, I think, is telling us that the conflict in the Middle East can not be solved through violence, because, as we learned last year from David Cronenburg's "A History of Violence," violence begets violence. He is probably saying that violence can only temporarily solve the problem, but even more unrest can materialize on top of the previous layer of conflict. If men on both sides of the battle continue on with their actions, then nothing will be gained and nothing will be solved. The Middle East will remain in a bloody stalemate forever, Spielberg tells us.
He's probably right. Countless other regions of the world are experiencing violence and depravation: Ireland, India, Pakistan, and Africa to name a few. Spielberg uses the Munich incident as a backdrop for rational explanation. He isn't pointing fingers, making accusations, or blurting out criticisms, but is instead observing and utilizing as only a master storyteller can. He is also not looking for any answers. He's only reminding us of the harsh reality that some humans cannot live in peace, but must instead resort to violence in order to achieve personal gain.
And this still rings true today. Because we see these events through Avner's eyes, and because Bana plays him so well, we understand him as a human begin with human concerns instead of a gun-welding hero out for a kill. As "Munich" progresses towards it's ending, we realize that Avner is every human being on the planet characterized into one person. He wants answers to what is going on in the world and he isn't getting any. That's what makes the film so appropriate, and Spielberg makes the film appropriate by ending it with an image so haunting in it's surrealism that it speaks volumes on it's own. It also reminds us that sometimes the people standing on the sidelines can get hurled into the game.
Rated R; 166 minutes; Directed by Steven Spielberg
Summary of Munich (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
At its core, Munich is a straightforward thriller. Based on the book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team by George Jonas, it?s built on a relatively stock movie premise, the revenge plot: innocent people are killed, the bad guys got away with it, and someone has to make them pay. But director Steven Spielberg uses that as a starting point to delve into complex ethical questions about the cyclic nature of revenge and the moral price of violence. The movie starts with a rush. The opening portrays the kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes by PLO terrorists at the 1972 Olympics with scenes as heart-stopping and terrifying as the best of any horror movie. After the tragic incident is over and several of the terrorists have gone free, the Israeli government of Golda Meir recruits Avner (Eric Bana) to lead a team of paid-off-the-book agents to hunt down those responsible throughout Europe, and eliminate them one-by-one (in reality, there were several teams). It?s physically and emotionally messy work, and conflicts between Avner and his team?s handler, Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush), over information Avner doesn?t want to provide only make things harder. Soon the work starts to take its toll on Avner, and the deeper moral questions of right and wrong come into play, especially as it becomes clear that Avner is being hunted in return, and that his family?s safety may be in jeopardy.By all rights, Munich should be an unqualified success--it has gripping subject matter relevant to current events; it was co-written by one of America?s greatest living playwrights (Tony Kushner, Angels in America) and an accomplished screenwriter (Eric Roth); it stars an appealing and likeable actor in Eric Bana; and it was helmed by Steven Spielberg, of all people. While it certainly is a great movie, it falls just short of the immense heights such talent should propel it to. This is due more to some questionable plot devices than anything else (such as the contrived use of a family of French informants to locate the terrorists). But while certain aspects ring hollow, the movie as a whole is a profound accomplishment, despite being only "inspired by true events," and not factually based on them. From the ferocious beginning to the unforgettable closing shot, Munich works on a visceral level while making a poignant plea for peace, and issuing an unmistakable warning about the destructive cycle of terror and revenge. As one of the characters intones, "There is no peace at the end of this." --Daniel Vancini
Similar DVD Movies
The Tragedy of the Munich GamesHart Sharp Video; Release date: 2005-12-20; DVD
Best price: $0.43
Price in other shops:
Inglourious Basterds (Single-Disc Edition)NBC Universal; Release date: 2009-12-15; DVD
Best price: $5.87
Price in other shops:
Michael Clayton (Widescreen Edition)Warner; Release date: 2008-02-19; Published: 2008-02-01; DVD
Best price: $2.78
Price in other shops:
Minority Report (Widescreen Two-Disc Special Edition)MCA; Release date: 2002-12-17; DVD
Best price: $1.88
Price in other shops:
Sword of GideonEcho; Release date: 2004-06-15; DVD
Best price: $9.04
Price in other shops:
DefianceCRAIG,DANIEL; Release date: 2009-06-02; Published: 2009-06-01; DVD
Best price: $2.89
Price in other shops:
Schindler's List (Widescreen Edition)UNI DIST CORP. (MCA); Release date: 2004-03-09; DVD
Best price: $6.98
Price in other shops:
Syriana (Widescreen Edition)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2006-06-20; Published: 2006-06-01; DVD
Best price: $1.25
Price in other shops:
One Day in SeptemberSony; Release date: 2005-12-20; DVD
Best price: $2.03
Price in other shops:
Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Teamby George Jonas
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2005-11-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.04
Price in other shops: