Munich

Munich is critically acclaimed and has been hailed as a wonderful film. For me, it was less than wonderful. Admittedly, I was tired and stayed up past my recent bed time to watch the drama unfold, so I ended up dozing off for moments at a time. Can I review I movie I fell asleep in? Perhaps I missed the one thing that would have made it so amazing. By the reaction of the people I saw it with, that isn't the case. "Munich" is 2 hours and 44 minutes long and seems 3 hours long. Recently, many studios have allowed the run-time of major pictures to well exceed 2 hours. If compelling enough, a view can watch a 3 hour film and not realize that much time has passed. In this case, for me, it was apparent. I feel strange saying something negative about a Speilberg film and about a film that carries such an important and tragic event to the screen.

Performances were strong. I hadn't researched much prior to arriving at the theater and was pleasantly surprised to see Geoffrey Rush in a sizable role. Eric Bana was excellent in his portrayal of an assassin. The story is interesting especially the news footage at the beginning. Having not lived during this time, I found it to be very compelling. At some point the film just lost momentum for me and I think looking more directly at the politics rather than indirectly as I feel it did, the film may have been more interesting. I expected more of a direct message.

Overall, "Munich" is worth watching. I just think there is too much hype about it and since I can, say that here.

I apologize if this review is somewhat weak. I saw it a few days ago and am in the middle of writing something else so this was just a quick break for me. :)

Have a great weekend.