MUNICH
Dir: Steven Spielberg

As a young teenager, Steven Spielberg's parents were divorced, and in a way, the United States' most famous director has been putting families back together, onscreen, ever since. But while his predilection for happy endings has earned the gifted storyteller countless millions, it has also garnered the technician the reputation of sentimentalist, or even, Peter Pan. And while thematically weighty films such as Schindler's List, and darker fare like Minority Report, have lessened the accusations of late, they've done nothing to change the fact that Spielberg often, especially in these more experimental films, can lose his nerve by the film's second hour. Simply put, regardless of the film's convictions, Spielberg seems unable to resist a feel-good closer. Witness the recent War of the Worlds, in which Tom Cruise finds his ex-wife, his in-laws, and both children, aliens be damned!

All of which makes Munich remarkable.

The film is a triumph for Spielberg, a taut revenge thriller as entertaining as Jurassic Park, with a beacon of painful truth as brilliant as his T-Rex was terrifying. A sad commentary on one of the most galvanizing quagmires of our generation, if not human history, Munich manages not only to eschew blame, but supersede it. In essence, the film is a treatise on violence -- well on par with Cronenberg's haunting contemporary film A History of Violence -- illustrating wonderfully the traumatic journey a soul can make when faced with senseless destruction. And not simply a soul: A family, a community, society at large. "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its `own values'," according to the film's trailer. The line is apropos thematically, but there is a better one hidden deep within the film's first hour. "We are in a dialogue now," one Israeli assassin explains to another, in describing the ongoing violence against Palestinians. He at once renders an unforgettable aural image of the rent between two peoples who were once one, and conveys the thematic crux of this Spielberg masterwork.

Beginning with the documentary-like images of Black September, Spielberg and his crew paint a picture of the fateful Munich Olympics of 1972, as well as an imagined aftermath of the traumatic events. "Imagined" is the essential word here: the film has been both lauded and attacked for claiming to be inspired by true events. Following the Munich massacre, the Israeli government hires everyman Avner (Eric Bana) to lead a band of assassins in revenge. "We have 11 Palestinian names. Each one of them had a hand in planning Munich. We want them all dead," instructs the shadowy Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush). With those words, he places father-to-be Bana, along with four other Jews, on a course of all-out vengeance. The paradox? What at first seems as simple as anger quickly becomes as labyrinthian as love.

Avner is the centerpiece of the film -- the moral compass, to borrow a cliché. Bana's portrayal is neither showy, like Philip Seymour Hoffman's in Capote, nor blindingly subtle like Heath Ledger's in Brokeback Mountain, but poignant in its simplicity. His is a character not crushed by the weight of his actions but bearing up under it ounce by ounce, the strain increasingly apparent in his ever-darkening eyes. As Avner struggles with the growing moral responsibility of his actions, his qualms manifest themselves, quite literally, in the lives of his compatriots: vehicles expert Steve (Daniel Craig), bomb-maker Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz), counterfeiter Hans (Hanns Zischler), and clean-up man Carl (Ciaran Hinds). Together the five travel the globe in search of terrorists, struggling with the uncomfortable likelihood they've become terrorists themselves.

This ambiguity is made visually apparent by Janusz Kaminski, in his ninth turn as Director of Photography for Spielberg. The cinematography is masterly: scenes slowly recede in clarity, from the burnt-out whites of desert sun to the foggy grey of European rain. True, the film is buoyed by the rollicking script of Tony Kushner and Eric Roth, but it is Kaminski's photography and John Williams' score that elevate it emotionally. In bald contrast to his usually bombastic creations, Williams delivers a quieter score. Most notable is a devastating refrain that incorporates the sounds of helicopter blades like those that splintered the night at Munich. The score seems to haunt Avner's dreams as well as the viewers'.