At the outset of Munich, Steven Spielberg's new film, it's 1972 and a group of friendly, unsuspecting Olympic contenders out drinking past curfew help what looks like another group of athletes over the wall of the Olympic village. Within seconds this group ( actually a band of Palestinian terrorists ) are breaking into the quarters of the Israeli team. This brief exchange as the anonymous athletes demonstrate, as a sign of comradeship for what they think are their friendly competitors, how to scale the wall—is the most chilling image in the film. We know that within the next few moments the world will be changed forever. It is Spielberg's contention ( and that of his screenwriter, openly gay Tony Kushner ) that this single act of terrorism set into motion acts of retribution by both sides that escalated to the 9/11 tragedy, war and horrors yet to come. Munich does its best to convince you of that—yet nothing in the long, long film that follows conveys as much as that opening moment.
Does the movie make a compelling argument for its contention? Not really, but then, how could a single movie fathom the scope of the subject? And, obviously, because it's a film about the murder of 11 Jewish innocents written by a famed Jewish playwright and directed by the world's most famous film director, who is famously Jewish, it's weighted toward the Jewish viewpoint. How could it not be? Kushner and Spielberg, to their credit, do offer some balance and include scenes that present the Palestinian point of view as well.
The framing device for this argument by the filmmakers is the aftermath of the killings. Israel's Prime Minister Golda Meier ( Lynn Cohen—galvanizing in her two scenes the way that Leigh Strasberg was as Hyman Roth in Godfather Part II ) meets with her cabinet who urge her to OK them to hire stealth assassins to go after the Palestinians who have escaped retribution. 'Today I hear with new ears' she says, agreeing to the plan.
A Mossad agent, Avner ( Eric Bana—who looks and acts like a young DeNiro ) is asked to head the team in a scene that is very reminiscent of the one in Apocalypse, Now where Martin Sheen was asked to get rid of Colonel Kurtz with 'extreme prejudice.' Most of the rest of the film is taken up with Avner and his team tracking, planning and executing these Palestinians. It's really not much different from a score of similar espionage/ action films ( and not nearly as good as many I could cite ) . And it keeps stopping to let the characters mull over and think and argue with each other about what they're doing. Naturally, as the killings increase, Avner begins to lose his sense of humanity and seems to question what he is doing. Like the mafia, though, once you're in, you're in for life.
Spielberg and Kushner, again like Apocalypse, Now ( this time Redux ) add a long sequence with a French family that sells information to the highest bidder on the whereabouts of killers and terrorists. This sequence is a much-needed respite in the executions as Avner lunches with this bourgeois group as they discuss the ethics of the family business. Interesting but essentially it's another long unnecessary digression.
The film is shot in '70s-style cinematography—it looks a lot like Dog Day Afternoon and Marathon Man—which helps to distance us a bit. But if it had been paced and edited at the same length as those two superior thrillers, Munich might have worked a lot better ( it's at least an hour too long to maintain much interest in the outcome ) . Cutting several of the 'thought-provoking' scenes that stop the momentum ( especially the most bizarre, where Avner makes love to his wife while fantasizing about the massacre in Munich ) would be a good start.
Spielberg the showman filmmaker obviously wants to stretch ( look no further than A.I. for proof of that ) , but his gift for action entertainment flies directly in the face of Kushner's punishing, complex morality. Munich is a collaboration that has breathtaking moments but fails as both grand entertainment and morality play.
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Many movie stars have physical signatures. Crawford had her shoulder pads, Davis her eyes, Gable his mustache. Jennifer Aniston has a permanent pout. And that hair. Oh, it just drives me crazy. Probably the way Veronica Lake's bangs did for some poor schlub movie reviewer back in the '40s. Aniston's pout and that long hair crowding the planes of her face like a nest of dead Medusa snakes are such a distraction for me that I can't seem to get past them. Like Renée Zellweger's tiny eyes, Scarlett Johansson's open-mouthed stare or Helen Hunt's squint, Aniston is all Pout With Hair up there 50-feet high. How she escaped from the TV screen to movie theaters is symptomatic for me of our celebrity-obsessed culture. She is out of place ( once again ) and out of her league in Rumor Has It, Rob Reiner's tart romantic dramedy that plays on the tantalizing idea that The Graduate was based on a real family.
At least Reiner has surrounded Aniston with a cast of comedic experts. It saved the picture for me. Shirley MacLaine as the real Mrs. Robinson blows Aniston off the screen with lines like 'Come in, I'll put on a pot of Bourbon,' Kevin Costner scores with his effortless charm as the seductive seducer Benjamin Braddock and Mark Ruffalo ( in his 43rd romantic dramedy this year ) is once again the sensitive hottie with a heart of gold. All these characters and more ( including hunk Steve Sandvoss who played a gay Mormon in Latter Days ) swirl about the Pout With Hair while she goes through an identity crisis of some sort and rattles off a lot of dialogue with a lot of adjectives.
There's something else that has been bugging me about these 'dramedies.' Why are they so popular? What happened to romantic comedies with strictly comedic situations that don't force characters to grow up or have commitment phobias? Where's the adult romantic comedies that were funny and sunny and not so intent on imparting 'truth?' Why does a comedy have to force feed me one of life's Big Lessons? All these 'dramedies' are, I think, a big turn off.
As for Pout With Hair, I still think her finest big-screen outing was as the whiny Valley Girl in the slasher camp fest, Leprechaun. Maybe I'll get lucky and she'll sign up for the next sequel. Luckier still—she'll cut her hair off. Luckiest—she'll go back to TV and leave movies for the movie stars.
