Steven Spielberg's ''Munich'' provoked quite a storm of controversy when it was released. The film was accused of excessively humanizing the Palestinian terrorists who organized the massacre of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics. A Mossad hit squad is ordered (by Golda Meir herself) to find those terrorists and to kill them in retaliation. As the film progresses, the team leader (played by Eric Bana) becomes progressively disillusioned with his mission and eventually leaves not only Mossad, but even Israel, and moves to the United States. The last, very controversial, shot of the film shows the World Trade Centre, clearly suggesting that all those killing have only lead to more terrorist attacks, including 9/11. The defeatist tone of the film is compounded by the fact that Spielberg doesn’t offer any alternative solutions. His point seems to be that while the retaliation was totally useless, there was nothing else that the Israelis could have done anyway. Quite a depressing message. Overall, this is one of Spielberg’s weakest films, but it's never boring. Just a minor work of a major filmmaker.
