Plot (Only of the First Part of the Film)

Munich (film)

Munich

The first poster for Munich Directed by Steven Spielberg Kathleen Kennedy Steven Spielberg Produced by Barry Mendel Colin Wilson Tony Kushner Written by Eric Roth Eric Bana Daniel Craig Ciarán Hinds Mathieu Kassovitz Hanns Zischler Starring Geoffrey Rush Ayelet Zurer Michael Lonsdale Mathieu Amalric Gila Almagor Moritz Bleibtreu

Munich is a 2005 semi-fictionalized film about the Israeli government's secret retaliation after the 1972 Munich massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes by Black September gunmen. The film stars Eric Bana and was co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg. It was written by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth.

The film shows how a squad of assassins, led by former Mossad agent Avner (Eric Bana) tracks down and kills a list of Black September members thought to be responsible for the eleven Israeli athletes' murders. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture.

The first part of the film, which depicts the hostage taking, corresponds well with historical accounts. The second part of the movie, which depicts the Israeli government's response, has been debated a great deal by film critics and newspaper columnists. Spielberg refers to the film's second part as "historical fiction", saying it is inspired by the actual Israeli operations which are now known as Operation Wrath of God.

Overview

The film is based on the book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team by Canadian journalist George Jonas, which in turn was based on the story of Yuval Aviv, who claims to have been a Mossad agent. In the book, Aviv's story is told through a protagonist called "Avner". Jonas's book was first turned into a made-for-TV movie in 1986 called Sword of Gideon, starring Steve Bauer and Michael York and directed by Michael Anderson.

Plot (only of the first part of the film)

The film begins with a depiction of the events of the Munich Massacre in 1972. After the killings, the Israeli government devises "an eye for an eye" retaliation. A target list of eleven names are drawn up in retaliation for the eleven Israeli men murdered.

Avner, an Israeli-born Mossad agent of German descent, is chosen to lead the assassination squad because he is not well-known in the field and he knows his way around Europe. To give the Israeli government plausible deniability, Avner officially resigns from Mossad, and the squad operates with no official ties to Mossad or the Government of Israel. Avner is given a team of four men: Steve, a South African driver; Hans, a document forger from Frankfurt; Robert, a Belgian toy-maker trained in explosives; and Carl, a former Israeli soldier who "cleans up" after the assassinations. Since the Mossad is "not connected" to the mission, Avner and his team set about tracking down the eleven targets with the help of informant Louis, who is introduced to Avner by an old friend.

The group go to Rome to track down and shoot their first target, one of the Black September planners, Abdel Wael Zwaiter, who is now broke and living as a poet in Italy where he has translated One Thousand and One Nights into Italian. The group follows him from a speech he gave to a small audience. After confirming the poet is indeed Abdel Wael Zwaiter (by asking him) the nervous squad makes their first kill.