Movies - Munich

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Munich is an Academy Award-nominated 2005 film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth. The movie is set after the 1972 Munich massacre, and follows a Mossad squad, led by "Avner" (Eric Bana), that is ordered to track down and kill the Black September terrorists thought to be responsible for the Israeli athletes' murders. The extent to which the movie represents fact is a matter of debate. Spielberg himself refers to it as "historical fiction" saying it is inspired by actual events. The film was shot in various places around Malta (which stands in for Israel, Cyprus, Athens, and also for Rome and Paris, in some scenes) and in Budapest (standing in for London , Rome and for the German airport of Fürstenfeldbruck).

Plot

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 has claimed to have once been a Mossad agent. In the book, Aviv's story is told through a protagonist called "Avner". The Jonas book was first turned into a made-for-TV movie in 1986 called Sword of Gideon
, starring Michael York and directed by Michael Anderson.

The film commences with a depiction of the events of the Munich Massacre in 1972, which is then followed by a recreation of the news coverage and snippets of real footage.

Avner, an Israeli-born office worker for Mossad with German descent, is summoned to become the leader of a five-member assassination squad to seek revenge for the Munich Massacre by tracking down and killing the planners responsible for the Black September terror attack. As Avner isn't a high ranking member of Mossad, he is made to sign a renunciation of any official relation to Mossad and made the leader of the group, which consists of Steve (the South African getaway driver), Hans (the German Jew document forger), Robert (a Belgian bomb expert) and Carl (the "worrier" who cleans up after the others). They operate independently of the official structure of Mossad, receiving large amounts of dollars in a Swiss bank.

To help track down the locations of the eleven Black September terrorists (who are dispersed around Europe and the Middle-East), Avner generously pays for help from a French informant named Louis.

The assassination locations include Rome, Cyprus, Paris, Beirut, Athens, and Hoorn.

Sometimes guns are used, and sometimes bombs.

The bombs are usually placed by breaking into the house or apartment, and triggered by remote control from a car.

In one case a bomb is hidden in a telephone. After the assassins have observed that the terrorist's wife and daughter have left the house, one of the assassins calls the terrorist from a nearby pay-phone. The plan is to trigger the bomb when the terrorist answers the phone. However, the daughter has returned to the house while the assassins' view was blocked by a truck, and she answers the phone; the assassin at the pay-phone can just in time warn the man in the car with the remote control that the bomb should not be triggered. After the daughter leaves, the terrorist is phoned again and now answers the phone himself, and the bomb is exploded. It is less powerful than expected, and the man dies only later, in the hospital.

In another case a bomb is hidden below a bed in a hotel. An assassin (Avner) carefully watches it from the balcony of an adjacent room. After ensuring that that the terrorist is on the bed, he signals this to others by switching off the light in his room. The bomb turns out to be more powerful than expected, and the couple in the adjacent apartment are also hurt along with Avner himself.

After they perform their fourth assassination, they discover that they themselves are becoming targets for assassins. One of the Israelis is murdered by a Dutch mercenary, whom the rest of the team later kills although she is not in the target list. This is in Hoorn, and the guns are disguised as frame mounted bicycle pumps.

Louis gives Avner the location of Ali Hassan Salameh, the mastermind of the Munich Massacre, and they know that if he is assassinated the remaining Mossad assassins will be allowed to return home.

The assassins manage to track down Salameh in Spain, but they are not able to kill him. Later, the assassins are relieved of their duties. Avner goes to his new home in Brooklyn, where he becomes paranoid about his and his family's safety. He endures flashbacks of the Munich Massacre and comes to question the value of his mission.

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Movies - Munich

Plot

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