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"We're supposed to be righteous," a toymaker-turned-bombmaker laments in Steven Spielberg's Munich.

He's talking about Israel in the wake of 1972's Palestinian terror attack that resulted in the deaths of eleven Israeli Olympians. A team of covert agents is out to kill the eleven men responsible for planning those attacks. The mission seemed like a gesture of righteous anger at first. But the violence is taking a heavy toll on him and his teammates. Bodies are piling up on both sides. Has he lost his innocence? He pleads with the team leader, "That's my soul. If I lose that, I lose everything."

The questions at the heart of this film echo those that drive David Cronenberg's A History of Violence and Michael Haneke's Caché . Is it possible for a man to carry out violence and remain blameless? What is he to do if his loved ones are victims? Retaliate? Or refuse to employ the same tactics as their enemies? How can peace be achieved when the enemy refuses to put down their arms? And what provoked such hatred in the first place?

Munich, which may be Steven Spielberg's most challenging film, brings up all of those questions—and more, all of them relevant in the world today, as the U.S. wrestles with its future in Iraq, and as Israel and Palestine careen between promising gestures and exchanging painful blows.

It's a soul-searching film that offers no easy answers. My full review is at Looking Closer.

"The issues America is dealing with now are issues that Israel and other nations have dealt with for a long, long time," writes Peter T. Chattaway (Christianity Today Movies), "and while we may or may not agree with Spielberg's take on the matter, it is to his credit that he has asked us to address our current concerns by taking a step back and looking at the bigger historical picture." He cautions viewers that Munich "has a strange habit of linking sex and violence and dwelling on that link."

Steven Isaac (Plugged In) has some trouble with Spielberg's method. He writes that the director "drives home the point that if you sink to the depraved and despicable level of your enemies, you gradually become them. And he points out that violence can prompt further violence. … Spielberg specializes in revealing how horrific war is, but he rarely hints at how necessary it sometimes is. Munich doesn't much aid the debate over whether Avner and his team have sunk to an unacceptable level. Rather, the film intentionally muddies it." Isaac also notes "huge doses of sexualized violence" which serve "titillation, not enlightenment. Obscenity, not observation. And shock, not entertainment."

But Kenneth R. Morefield (Christian Spotlight) says, "Munich is a skillfully made, emotionally earnest examination of an important subject. Because of that, and because of its pedigree, people will think it is both better and worse than it actually is. I want to be upfront about its strengths, since my concerns about its limitations don't mean that I think this is anything less than a high caliber film."

After a close examination, he concludes by comparing Spielberg's sentiments with those of another famous entertainer—Shakespeare. "Henry V ends up declaring that no man can take moral responsibility for another: every man's duty is the king's, but every man's conscience is his own. Munich? It proposes that mortgaging your conscience to make and preserve a home may not morally bankrupt you, but it is still a heavy price to pay."

"Munich is both timely and timeless as it deals with issues of violence and revenge," says Darrel Manson (Hollywood Jesus). "It doesn't attempt to give any easy answers. It does make us ask questions though—not only in a theoretical sense, but also to apply those questions to the world and nation in which we live. Munich will certainly be toward the top of my favorites list this year."

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January (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50