REVENGE IS BITTER

POPCORN RATING

***** Unmissable

**** Entertaining

*** Good effort

** Disappointing

* One to avoid

MUNICH (15)

THE STARS Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Geoffrey Rush, Ciaran Hinds. THE STORY Following the killing of 11 Israeli athletes by the Black September terrorist group at the 1972 Munich Olympics, Israel's secret service Mossad retaliate by deploying a team of agents to assassinate Palestinian leaders suspected of planning the attack.

Led by Avner (Bana), the team includes an impulsive agent (Craig) and an intellectual doubter (Hinds) and they set about assassinating key names they think are linked to the Munich attack.

While they travel Europe setting up assassinations, Avner sends his wife and new baby to New York, but as the bodies begin to tumble doubts begin to emerge about the information on their targets and the policy of revenge itself.

WHAT'S GOOD? Steven Spielberg's epic revenge tale is powerfully staged, totally fascinating, morally ambiguous and ultimately rather uninvolving.

The opening scenes made up of actual TV footage from the Munich killings and a recreation of the attack are brilliantly and emotively staged, and Spielberg cleverly draws the audience into Israel's outrage and Prime Minister Golda Meir's determination to strike back. Australian actor Eric Bana is excellent as Avner, the complex leader of the hit team, initially determined to kill at all costs but who gradually starts to question the assassinations. Daniel Craig (the next James Bond) is all muscle and little brain power, while it is the continually impressive Ciaran Hinds who offers the only real debate about the actions of the Israelis.

Best of all is the terrific recreation of Europe of that era and the marvellously tense way that Spielberg stages the brutal revenge killings and crafts a film that is both thoughtful and entertaining.

WHAT'S BAD? Though intriguing and fascinating, Munich is never completely absorbing and Spielberg never really manages to convince in terms of his revenge killers and their reasoning.

The film is caught between wanting to be an action thriller and needing to recreate actual assassinations, and running more than two- and-a-half hours it is too episodic and confused at times to be completely compulsive.

There is a larger debate raging about the real story behind this film adaptation of George Jonas's book Vengeance and the morality behind state-approved assassinations.

HOW LONG IS IT? A powerful 164mins.

FINAL VERDICT A crackingly staged and thoughtful political j thriller. Opens Friday, Jan 27 ****

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