☆ 刺刺蝟的進化論 ☆

"I have the most boring job in the world."

I am an undercover assassin.

My job is to kill the 11 Palestinian men who murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the '72 Munich Olympic Games.

I work for no one.

The government has no clue who I am.

I do not exist.




As I walked out of the theater, I felt empty. I later described the emptiness to my colleagues as,
"I think I came to the movie wanting to know something; I don't know what it is, but I don't think I got it."

But later, I realized it was the Hollywood demons playing tricks on me.

Too used to seeing movies and documentaries that had a "stance," and when Steven Spielberg, himself a Jew, presented to us this movie so different from "Schindler's List"--this time, he's not taking any sides--and it seems strange. Furthermore, It may even seem more stupid that Spielberg was said to have chosen a most unattributable version of the Munich killings as his plot base.
as some viewers have commented: "Spielberg tried to please the Israelites without angering the Palestinians, but he didn't achieve it."

Didn't he, really?

History is only true to those who lived in that period,
it is not for us to judge who was right and who was wrong.
The Arab say, no, the Jews are the ones that made us this way,
but what the world saw was the kidnapping and murder of 11 Israelite athletes by the group Black September, in an international sports event that was supposed to represent world peace.
"Terrorism will not prevail," the only thing I believe Bush has ever been right on,
is seen in action here, as the Jews return the blow.
Four men, unassociated with each other prior to the mission, become "butchers with gentle souls."
The actual event is interwoven throughout the mission to assassinate all those
in the Black September involved with the Munich incident,
flashes of it fill the protagonist--Avner's--head in his sleep,
when he sees his squad member killed,
when he makes love to his wife.....
the ethnical hatred, so distant to him at the start, takes over his mind--until his wife says, "I love you,"
and the 3 words brings Avner back to real life, what he truly holds in his hands.
Love, even just a little bit, can still conquer accumulated wrath in the end.
But it will never be the same again, between Avner and Ephraim--his "non-existent" boss.
Avner's love is for his family, but to Ephraim, Israel is his family....
which would you rather die for, your family or your country?

The way Eric Bana portrayed Avner, was another highlight of the movie.
Not only was he physically HOTTER than he had been in "Troy,"
when he played Trojan prince Hector against a showoff Achilles that was Brad Pitt,
but also his acting skill has improved in depth.
You can't help but feel nervous for him as he shot his first target--would he get caught??
For God's sake, he was shaking all over when he did it!
And then you can't help feeling--thrilled, actually!--for him as he gets better and better at it,
but you also see his change throughout the killings...
inally, two hours later, you can't help but feel sympathy for him,
as in 7 months he and his die-hard squad had killed 6 of 11 targets by shooting,
installing bombs under mattresses, in telephones,
and when he finds himself unable to rest at night,
knowing he's being hunted down by the enemy, he can only sleep in the closet...
and when he takes his one-year-old daughter for a walk in the neighborhood,
he sees a passing limousine with an open window,
and thinks there will be a gun sticking out of it... but the passenger just flicks out a cigarette butt.

The movie may well be entirely fictional,
but it gets you thinking about things that rarely stay in your mind as you watch
almost the same stuff happening on the news.
If anyone needs proof that it won't be a 2 hours and 50 minutes of bore,
I went to the 12:10 AM show after 10 straight hours of work,
and stayed wide awake till the credits came out.