16/18
Should you see this movie?
Synopsis
During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, an American sports broadcast team must adapt to live coverage while Israeli athletes are held hostage by a terrorist group. cover events related to the hostage crisis that you may already know. YES. Does Paramount know how to market this movie? No, this movie is set around the terrorist attack on the 1972 Olympics, but it is actually about the ABC sports team, suddenly tasked with providing live coverage of the attack. We see everything from the crew’s point of view.
Unlike other recent movies (eg
Late Night With The Devil), this is not presented as found footage, but simply a dramatization of the events. So the production does not use shaky-cam, but instead uses “technological mastery”; the technology available at the time. Most of the action is with the crew behind the scenes, so you don’t know the people or their names. Jim McKay is the main face of the news, and viewers old enough to have watched sports in that era will be familiar with him. Peter Jennings is on the scene as the sole journalist, rather than a sportscaster, and he comes across as a refreshingly tough guy. Howard Cosell does a voiceover report, and that’s the end of the people you know.
But there are also ethical issues that news crews don’t need to discuss
I want to give props to the blending of new and archive video and audio. I assume archive was used, but it’s absolutely perfect, so I’m not sure (and the credits rolled too quickly). Much of the technology of the era (which will sound boring if I describe it, but is presented appealingly). For example: should they broadcast live video of the attack site, when that might lead to someone’s crime being broadcast? The film covers about a 24-hour period, and tells us only what the crew knows. That leaves us with a few uncertainties, mainly: was it Black September; and what really happened in the foggy war scene at the airport.
The film is absolutely captivating
This next question is somewhat troubling, as we get the impression that once the terrorists and hostages had cleared the Olympic Village, the German police probably cared less about protecting the hostages. This seems unfair to the Germans of the time. Before the action begins, we get a few set-up scenes to meet the characters and see how they cover sports. I was surprised to see accolades here for injecting politics into sports broadcasting, both in promoting Cold War rivalries and capitalizing on lingering World War II grievances. Once the action began, I was surprised by how often I found myself on the edge of my seat. It works as a time capsule.
It just works
It works as a behind-the-scenes show. It works as a story of terrorism.