Does paramount know how to market this movie?
Synopsis
During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, an American sports broadcasting team must adapt to live coverage the Israeli athletes being held hostage by a terrorist group.. I'm not going to flag this for spoilers, because the only spoilers will be about the hostage crisis events you may already know.Should you see this movie? Yes. NoThis movie is set around the terrorist attack on the 1972 Olympics, but is really about the ABC sports crew suddenly tasked with providing live reports about the attack.We see everything from the crew's point of view.
Howard Cosell gives a voice-over report, and that's the end of people you'd know
Unlike other recent movies (ie Late Night With The Devil) this is not presented as found footage, just a dramatization of events. So the production doesn't resort to shaky-cam but does use "state of the art" technology available at that time.Most of the action is of the behind the scenes crew, so you don't know the people or their names. Jim McKay is the primary face of the news reports, and viewers old enough to have watched sports in that era will know him. Peter Jennings is on site as the only news entity rather than sports reporter, and he refreshingly comes off as a jerk.
But there's also ethical questions news crews may not need to discuss
I want to give props to the blending of new and archive video and audio. I assume some archive was used but it's absolutely seamless so I'm not sure (and the credits rolled too quickly).The crew has many struggles getting the news out. Much of it is with the technology of the time (which will sound boring if I describe it, but it's presented engagingly). For example: should they broadcast live video of the attack site when that might lead to broadcasting someone's murder.The movie covers about a 24 hour period and only tells us what the crew knows.
The film is absolutely riveting
This leaves us with some uncertainties, most notably: was it Black September; and what really happened in the fog of war scene at the airportThis later question is somewhat disturbing as we are left with an impression that, once the terrorists and hostages are away from Olympic village, the German police were, perhaps, less concerned about protecting the hostages. That seems unfair to the Germans of the day.Before the action starts we get some establishing scenes to meet the characters and see how they report sports. I was surprised to see here admissions of injecting politics into the sports broadcasts–both in fanning cold war rivalries and making hay out of lingering grievances from world War 2.Once the action got going I was surprised how often I was shifting to the edge of my seat. It works as a time capsule.
It just works
It works as a behind the scenes expose. It works as a story of terrorism.