This is the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Olympics, when Palestinian terrorists held 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage, which led to a botched rescue attempt and the murder of the surviving athletes (two had already been killed) by the terrorists. The dark event at the heart of the movie is presented starkly, accurately for the most part, and well. Before the opening credits, Spielberg informs us that the movie was “inspired by real events”-which raises the question, where in Munich does fact end and fiction begin? Indeed, it is full of distortions and flights of fancy that would make any Israeli intelligence officer blush. Co-written by the playwright Tony Kushner and based in part on a book, Vengeance by George Jonas, that has been widely called into question, Steven Spielberg’s Munich is not a documentary.
