Reviewed by Bob Rigg

THIS challenging and absorbing account of the 1972 killing of 11 Israeli athletes by the Palestinian terror group Black September marks a new peak in the cinematic work of Steven Spielberg. Well known for his mega-movies, he is less well known as the man who, in addition to directing Schindler's List, has provided funding and inspiration for a massive project documenting and archiving the stories of survivors of the Shoah (or Holocaust).


The Black September massacre in the Munich Olympic Village marked a watershed in international perceptions of the Palestinian liberation movement, and led to a resurgence of pro-Israeli sentiment worldwide. When Israel began assassinating those said to have been responsible for Munich, this campaign initially enjoyed widespread international support. For anyone, but especially those who are either Jewish or Palestinian, this is tricky and dangerous terrain. All the more so as Spielberg focuses on the team of hand-picked intelligence operatives covertly appointed by the Israeli government to carry out this campaign, on the explicit understanding that Israel would disown them if anything went wrong.

The horrific killing of the Israeli athletes slowly unravels as the plot of the movie unfolds. They are simply sportsmen about to engage in their chosen sports, and are portrayed without any hint of moral or ideological heroism. This makes their brutal murder all the more moving. They are human like the rest of us, with families whose lives are irreparably shattered. The same is true of the Israeli operatives, who are accomplished assassins, and who, at the personal invitation of Israel's Prime Minister, commit themselves to what they initially perceive as a mission with a clear moral purpose.

But they immediately find themselves in a shadowy world of intelligence and counter-intelligence, conflicts of interest, delicate shades of moral judgment, and growing disillusionment. Although they are trained killers, they do not enjoy their trade: "Butcher's hands, gentle souls," as one of them puts it. "God said, I have just killed a multitude of my children," says another. They begin to realise that only some of those they are killing were actually associated with the September massacre. They see that the Israeli government is taking advantage of this opportunity to occupy the moral high ground and to eliminate some key leaders of the Palestinian movement. This, amongst other things, erodes their sense of commitment to what they are doing. The half life of complete secrecy they are leading has completely isolated them from contact with families and friends, and throws them back on one another. Although they occasionally fight, and frequently differ, with refreshing openness, they become very close friends. They play God, irrespective of whether they are killing or sparing from being killed. In one gripping scene the captivating daughter of a chosen victim unexpectedly returns from school just as they are about to assassinate her father. They panic and break every rule in the book to avoid blowing her up. But as soon as the coast has cleared, they coolly proceed with the execution.

The theme of "home" is at the heart of the movie. "We have a place on earth at last." But here we have the Jewish and Palestinian peoples competing for the same home. Both sides see that, historically, they have invoked violence and terror, and have demonised each other. At the end of the movie Avner Kaufmann, the leader of the assassination squad, is visited in his New York refuge by an Israeli intelligence chief, and is invited to return home, with full honours. Avner is so disillusioned that he prefers diaspora, or homelessness outside Israel, to a return to his native land. He can no longer reconcile the concept of home with the needs and definitions of his former state.

This courageous, remarkably detached yet intensely human movie establishes a new benchmark in un-American filmmaking: technically superb, subtly and endlessly differentiated, and devoid of false moralism and ideological pathos. The issues raised by the film are just as relevant today: who cannot fail to see the parallels between Golda Meir's statement at the beginning of the movie, justifying an Israeli terror campaign on the grounds that the Munich massacre had changed everything, and the response of the Bush administration to the 2002 Twin Towers episode?