This is a very difficult movie to watch because the audience must decide if it is ok to "cheer" for five men who are trying to kill all those responsible for the murder of eleven Israeli Olympic athletes. I was really excited to see this movie when I first saw the trailer, but now that I have seen it, I believe it is a great movie and very interesting, just hard to watch.

Eric Bana (The Hulk) is Avner, a Mossad agent who is unofficially asked by the Israeli government, specifically the Prime Minister, to take a group of men to Europe and hunt down and kill the men who helped plan and execute the "Black September" kidnapping. Members of the Palestinian group Black September kidnapped 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. Two of the athletes were killed at the Olympic compound and the other nine were killed at the airport where the botched German rescue attempt took place. The Israeli Government feels that not enough was done to help the athletes, wants to avenge the death of the team and ask Avner to carry it out.

I don't know how to feel about this movie. It is a magnificently told story about a bunch of men who have to do a horrible job. But do I root for these men who are hunting and killing other men who were responsible for killing other men? My first inclination is to say no, but then again I ask myself if I would enjoy a movie that involves men hunting down the people responsible for the 9/11 attacks and my reaction is hell yes. So putting it in perspective, I can root for these Israeli assassins, but it is difficult. A key element that makes it difficult is that these men that orchestrated the attack at Munich are otherwise ordinary men, some of them over 60 years old, and others with families. One scene involves the young daughter of one of the soon to be dead men, and that was again difficult to watch. To his credit, Spielberg did a great job of showing that this men that planned these attacks are just as ordinary as the men who are hunting them down.

As for the movie itself, its production design is wonderful. The movie time period is the 1970's and it looks it down to every meticulous detail. It is filmed in such a way that it looks like it was shot in the 1970's, as if it was a documentary. There is a mixture of actual historical footage from the Munich Olympics mixed in with the film, and you can't tell that the news footage is from a different era, the cinematography is excellent.

Munich represents the best work to date for actor Eric Bana. I enjoyed his work in the movie Black Hawk Down, and in Munich, he does a very convincing job of showing his inner turmoil with the morality of his job. When Bana's character begins to have serious issues with what his is doing, he 'daydreams' to the Munich event to help him justify his job, as well as to the audience in the theater to remind people what happened and what he is trying to do. Many scenes stand out in my head that show Bana's great performance, the first killing that his team is involved in and the indecision he has at shooting him, and listening to his daughter's laugh, for the first time, over the phone, while he is fighting himself and other temptations. Two very good scenes that show Bana's range and shows that he definetly has the ability to perform an Academy Award ® winning character.

The writing of the screenplay is also exceptional and Tony Kushner (Angels in America) and Eric Roth (Oscar ® winner for writing Forrest Gump) do a great job of adapting the book, Vengence, written by George Jonas. Making the people responsible for Munich is a key element to why this movie is so good AND why it is so difficult to watch. If the men were phony or bigger than life, then the deaths would be meaningless and therefore the movie meaningless. I think that is the most important aspect of this movie.

Among the other actors that were in the movie, nobody did a bad job, but overall I felt they gave a very ho-hum performance. French Actor Mathieu Amalric who portrayed a French informant Louis, was probably the best. He did a very good job of keeping who he was a mystery and when he got pissed off at Bana's character it was very intensive but not overly emotional. Another fine but brief performance was given by another French actor Michael Lonsdale (Moonraker, Ronin.) His role as 'papa' of the French underground, for lack of a better term, was very brief but very good. Even though he is old as an actor, I totally believed the threats that his character made at Bana's character. There is also a great see between Louis and Papa which shows the difficult relationship that they have with each other.

By the way, Daniel Craig, a.k.a the new James Bond, is in it and if that is his tough guy then his career as James Bond will be very brief. He came off very whiney and never once did portray his character as being the muscle that his character needs to be, or has to be, since that is really the only role his character can have. Not looking forward to the new Bond movie. But to look at the bright side, at least it should usher in Clive Owen as Bond.

This is a wonderful movie yet very difficult to watch. It won't get much Academy Award ® attention but that's ok, this is the best movie of the year.

Brian - the Naked Gun