Product Description

BONUS FEATURES: WATCH THE MERCURY RISING, AN ORIGINAL FEATURETTE ON THE MAKING OF THE FILM, THEATRICAL TRAILER, TALENT BIOS, WEB LINKS, PRODUCTION NOTES, FILM HIGHLIGHTS, MAKING OF DOCUMENTARY, AND AUDIO COMMENTARY.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23017 in DVD
• Brand: UNI DIST CORP. (MCA)
• Released on: 2006-05-09
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: Arabic, English, French, German, Hebrew
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 48.00" h x 96.00" w x 144.00" l, 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 164 minutes

Amazon.com
At its core, Munich is a straightforward thriller. Based on the book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team by George Jonas, it’s built on a relatively stock movie premise, the revenge plot: innocent people are killed, the bad guys got away with it, and someone has to make them pay. But director Steven Spielberg uses that as a starting point to delve into complex ethical questions about the cyclic nature of revenge and the moral price of violence. The movie starts with a rush. The opening portrays the kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes by PLO terrorists at the 1972 Olympics with scenes as heart-stopping and terrifying as the best of any horror movie. After the tragic incident is over and several of the terrorists have gone free, the Israeli government of Golda Meir recruits Avner (Eric Bana) to lead a team of paid-off-the-book agents to hunt down those responsible throughout Europe, and eliminate them one-by-one (in reality, there were several teams). It’s physically and emotionally messy work, and conflicts between Avner and his team’s handler, Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush), over information Avner doesn’t want to provide only make things harder. Soon the work starts to take its toll on Avner, and the deeper moral questions of right and wrong come into play, especially as it becomes clear that Avner is being hunted in return, and that his family’s safety may be in jeopardy.

By all rights, Munich should be an unqualified success--it has gripping subject matter relevant to current events; it was co-written by one of America’s greatest living playwrights (Tony Kushner, Angels in America) and an accomplished screenwriter (Eric Roth); it stars an appealing and likeable actor in Eric Bana; and it was helmed by Steven Spielberg, of all people. While it certainly is a great movie, it falls just short of the immense heights such talent should propel it to. This is due more to some questionable plot devices than anything else (such as the contrived use of a family of French informants to locate the terrorists). But while certain aspects ring hollow, the movie as a whole is a profound accomplishment, despite being only "inspired by true events," and not factually based on them. From the ferocious beginning to the unforgettable closing shot, Munich works on a visceral level while making a poignant plea for peace, and issuing an unmistakable warning about the destructive cycle of terror and revenge. As one of the characters intones, "There is no peace at the end of this." --Daniel Vancini

Customer Reviews

'Home is all that matters'
Attempting to understand what drives people to kill other people for any reason is, in the pit of the soul, a challenging enigma. Whether that 'reason' is war between countries at odds, protecting one's self when endangered, revenge or vengeance for deeds perpetrated by 'the other', for panic in the moment of survival - each of these feels wrong despite the fundamental belief to the contrary at the moment of killing. MUNICH is about killing, about vengeance, about protection of 'home', about existence in a world so bifurcated by age-old schisms, and about us. And while absorbing all of the 2 1/2 hour plus visual and philosophical information put forth in this epic film, the viewer is so paralyzed by the story that blinking for a second seems irreverent.

The tragedy of the 1972 Olympics - the brutal kidnapping and murder of eleven Israeli athletes by masked Arab/Palestinian marauders - is brought to the screen with brave and gutsy realism by a brilliant script by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth based on George Jonas' book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team, directed with straightforward, no-nonsense sensitivity to all participants by Steven Spielberg, and brought to life by a cast that simply could not be finer. From the opening of the film sans credits with the Black September act of breaking into the Olympic games in Munich, the film moves swiftly through the formation of an anti-terrorist league of Israeli assassins whose job it is to hunt down the killers and murder them, to the final painfully unsettled end. This is all under the instruction and guidance of Golda Meir (brilliantly played by Lynn Cohen) and her advisors.

The team of Avner (Eric Bana), Steve (Daniel Craig), Carl (Ciaran Hinds), Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz), Hans (Hanns Zischler), and Mossad Accountant (Oded Teomi) are instructed by Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush) and stripped of their identities to enter this mission. They roam the world based on information purchased from a secret group led by Louis (Mathieu Amalric) and Papa (Michael Lonsdale). Gradually growing into the roles of assassins the group begins to murder each of the perpetrators until their success is noticed by all manner of secret agencies (including the American CIA) and the tables are turned: the lives of the Israeli assassins are as endangered as those of the Arab murderers. In a particularly touching moment in the dark, Avner and a Palestinian soldier debate the need for the state of Israel and the opposite need for holding onto home by the Palestinian: it is a moment of writing that sums up the entire Israeli conflict.

The cinematography by Janusz Kaminski and the music score by the always fine John Williams add dimensions of atmosphere to this dark film, but it is Spielberg doing what he does best in directing attention to moments in history that will never be buried that makes this phenomenal movie an emotional experience for everyone, no matter their political or religious beliefs. It is simply a brilliant film about the need for Home - that sacred place whether internal or external that maintains the reason to live and even to die for it. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, May 06

ORDINARY PEOPLE IN A GRINDER OF HISTORY
What could you expect from a two and a half-hour picture based on actual events and telling about Israeli government avenging their olympic team members killed by palestinian terrorists during Munich Olympic Games of 1972? Well, not a breathtaking, action-packed thriller, that's for sure. I thought it would be long, boring, didactic and over the top pompous. Even the presence of Steven Spielberg's name in the credits couldn't inspire me. Now I'm glad I was wrong on all counts. Yes, it was long, but of that kind when you wish a film had never ended. It's neither boring nor didactic nor pretentious.

Young Mossad agent Avner (Eric Bana) is given a task to eliminate the members of "Black September" terrorist organization with the help of a group of fellow agents. And that's what they do during two hours and a half of the screen time - locating and killing Palestinian terrorists one by one. "Munich" could become one of the many political thrillers about confrontation of different countries' intelligence services. It could raise some serious questions of historical importance and be overly-political. But Spielberg did an amazing thing with this global story - he transferred it to the personal level. So this story turned out to be not about countries, governments and intelligence services but about ordinary men. A country's vengeance was laid upon one man's shoulders, and that's how we see it - through his eyes. Along with him we will question the righteousness of his task, we will doubt, we'll see how a revenge appears to be ineffective and reasonless (as it always happens) especially if it's a revenge in a global scale: terrorism is like hydra - you cut one head off and two more emerge in it's place. We see how Avner who dedicated his work and his life to the country he loved ends up feeling useless and knowing that from now on his life is in danger. Furthermore he understands that for the sake of some illusive goal he put at risk the lives of his loved ones - his wife and child. "Munich" is the story of another zealous man who was grinded by the millstones of big politics and governmental interests. And finally this story leads to an eternal conclusion that you can't beat violence with more violence. You can deteriorate everything, unleash something you couldn't imagine in your worst nightmares, but you can't defeat violence doing the killings yourself.
Steven Spielberg demonstrated his immense talent again taking this epic and well-known story, drawing some ordinary people out of it and still making grand and philosophical conclusions.
Great film - awesome acting performances, brilliant cinematography (as always by Janusz Kaminski), interesting subject, entertaining yet thoughtful story-line, clear message which is at the same time not obsessive or annoying - prime Spielberg I'd say. Definately one of the best pictires of the last year undeservingly unmarked by the Academy award.

Great movie...hard to find this edition though.
For those of you that are looking for the Limited Edition of this film and can't find it...my advice is to wait. I'm also looking for it and recently found it on barnes and noble. I ordered it and recieved it in extremely poor condition (case was bent, booklet frayed). I ordered another one and it was worse. And now...they're out of stock. So to you Munich fans who are dying for this dvd, my advice is to wait until they come back in stock or until Universal releases a 3 disc set which they could considering that's what they did with The Terminal.It's a fantastic movie and it's an even better set. I highly recommend Munich and this edition. It's one of Spielberg's best films.