Just because this film has been attacked by pols and shills, here's my 2 cents. Spielberg manages to set the agenda, and sets it correctly. It is indeed about the antecedents to 9/11, and bravo to Spielberg for taking it on, but not somewhere in Afghanistan, but at its genesis, the squalor of Palestine.

Spielberg's film is an essay on revenge and how hopeless and self-defeating that ancient temptation is. It's brave of Spielberg to say it to us now; brave, too, to paint the avenging Israelis as somewhere below the Angels. Let's be candid: There are harsh sentiments expressed here, by some Israeli characters, that the Evangelical Lobby simply doesn't want aired.

Spielberg's handling of the Bana character is masterful. Noteworthy is how uncompromising it is: this is a man whose identity has collapsed. It's entirely right that his Israeli handler should refuse the Sabbath-meal invitation at the end, realizing that the bonds of the older religion (and pre-Zionist identity) are shattered and meaningless.

Spielberg might have improved this product (some of the dialogues are horribly wooden). But that's not important. That a mainstream US film should go where this film goes is significant. This is a major-minor event in Spielberg's long and luminous career.

In 1972, nine Israelis are killed at the Munich Olympics. Prime Minister Golda Meir approves a covert operation to assassinate the eleven deemed responsible for the act. Avner (Eric Bana) is low level Mossad tasked to lead the secret mission. He was Golda Meir's bodyguard some two years ago, and he must leave his pregnant wife for an unknown length of time. Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush) is his case handler. The four men on his team are Steve (Daniel Craig), Carl (Ciarán Hinds) the cleaner, Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz) the bomb maker and Hans (Hanns Zischler) the documents guy. They are expendable and must deal with questionable people like Louis (Mathieu Amalric) who tracks down their targets and provide them with material.

There is a calculated coldness to the movie and Eric Bana contributes to that. I think Spielberg should have made this more emotional. The audience is detached from the characters. The action is coldly efficient without being exciting. This is not a thriller like a Bond movie. Neither is it a psychological study since Bana can't portray a tortured soul. It is very well made but I feel nothing watching it.

A reminder that Spielberg can make strong, mature films for adult viewers when he knuckles down to it, in comparison to the usually sentimental and twee offerings he makes for kiddie audiences. MUNICH is an often gripping world-hopping thriller that outdoes the likes of Ridley Scott's SPY GAME in terms of international espionage.

It helps that the central narrative is strong and ever-moving: a team of assassins are set up by the Israeli government to kill the Palestinian terrorists responsible for the murder of Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics. Violent death, condemnation and retribution are the central themes here, dealt with a more subtle approach than you might have expected.

Spielberg's cinematography is impressive, as it avoids flashiness and super-fast editing to instead provide an old-fashioned, '70s-style piece of tense filmmaking. The script is strong and the cast stronger; Eric Bana gives a reminder of why he was once leading man material back in the day, Daniel Craig shines in a supporting role, Ciaran Hind is splendid, as ever, and Mathieu Amalric steals all of his scenes. MUNICH is a great film and clearly one of the director's best.