Munich

Eric Bana as Avner
Release Date: December 23rd, 2005
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Written by: Tony Kushner and Eric Roth
Genre: Drama / Thriller

Other Cast:
… Daniel Craig
… Geoffrey Rush
… Mathieu Kassovitz
… Hanns Zischler
… Ciaran Hinds
… Brian Goodman

At the center of the story is the young Israeli patriot and intelligence officer Avner. Still mourning the Munich massacre and infuriated by its savagery, Avner is approached by a Mossad officer named Ephraim who presents him with an unprecedented mission in Israeli history. He asks Avner to leave behind his pregnant wife, relinquish his identity and go completely underground on a mission to hunt down and kill the 11 men accused by Israeli intelligence of masterminding the murders at Munich.

Despite his youth and inexperience, Avner soon becomes the leader of a team of four very diverse yet highly skilled recruits: the brash, tough, South African-born getaway driver, Steve; the German Jew Hans, who has a flair for forging documents; the Belgian toymaker-turned-explosives-expert, Robert; and the quiet, methodical Carl, whose job is to “clean up” after the others.

From Geneva to Frankfurt, Rome, Paris, Cyprus, London and Beirut, Avner and his team circle the globe under a cloak of extreme secrecy, tracking down each man on a closely guarded list of targets and carrying out intricately plotted assassinations, one by one. Working outside the rubric of international law, adrift without home or family, their only connection to humanity becomes one another. But even that starts to fray as the four men begin to argue among themselves about the unsettling questions that just won’t go away: “Who exactly are we killing? Can it be justified? Will it stop the terror?”

Torn between their desire for justice and their own growing doubts, the mission begins to tear at the souls of Avner and his team, and it becomes increasingly clear that the longer they remain on the hunt, the more they are in danger of becoming the hunted.

From the Gallery:

Quotes from the Cast and Crew

Eric Bana on how Steven Spielberg approached him with the project
“I was in L.A. finishing off the movie ‘Troy’ and I had a phone call saying ‘Steven Spielberg would like to meet with you. He’s shooting on a set in the middle of the desert at an airport. Could you go and see him?’ and I said ‘Of course I’m gonna see him’. So I drove out to the Californian desert and there’s where I met Steven the first time. He told me his intentions to make this film and told me about the subject matter which luckily I was familiar with cause I’d read some books about it. At the end of it, I wondered what to do with myself and I asked him what me being there had to do with everything and he said ‘I like you to play the role of Avner who’s going to be the lead character’. So I was shocked, surprised, thrilled and scared, of course. About ten months later we started shooting.”

Eric Bana on working with Steven Spielberg
“The beauty of working with someone like Steven is obviously the fact that he can literally get the people that he wants, who wouldn’t want to work for Steven? I think in this movie, probably more than any other, he’s assembled such a wide range of talented people from all over the globe. It really was incredible.”

Eric Bana on Steven Spielberg’s directing style
“I don’t know if there is, I certainly haven’t met one, a director who’s more reactionary to what’s occuring in front of him. He’s the purest definition, I think, of an ‘actor’s director’. He’s all about supporting you and your co-stars’ performances. He reacts to every single thing, he doesn’t miss anything that you’re doing, he will change shots, change scenes, change sequences based on things that are happening in front of him that’s different to how he envisioned it. That’s to me what’s so exciting.”

External Links:

• Internet Movie Database
Additional credits, plot summary, facts, quotes and more.

• Official Site
The movie’s official site.