The core power of this documentary is the intelligently and very touching story as told by Ankie Spitzer, the wife of one of the athletes involved in this.

Otherwise, this is a very straight-forward story of how the Olympic Games were hit by terrorists who took the Israeli squad hostage, making some quite incredible demands, and how the “rescue-mission” was completely botched by the German government, kind of shoot-aim-ready, in that order. I’m amazed by how it seems that very few people/governments were genuinely interested in helping out. Also, it felt very weird to me that the Olympics went on despite of the hostage-situation, which happened in the compound.

The soundtrack to this documentary is quite bewildering at times, except when slo-mo film is shown of athletes competing. Michael Douglas’ drawling voice is – thankfully – not applied often throughout the documentary.

All in all: interesting, but if it weren’t for Ankie Spitzer and a few other voices chiming in here, there wouldn’t be much more than a cinematic equivalent of a Wikipedia entry to this.

Wow. A really captivating glimpse at these infamous events (to someone born nearly a decade later).

While it does not go much into the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, in my opinion it does do a good job of showing what the atmosphere was like at the ’72 Olympics, how lax the security was, how unprepared the German police were to respond, and how ridiculous it was for the Games to be allowed to continue while this hostage crisis was underway.

The following clip of Press secretary Conrad Ahlers during the confusion following the arrival of the terrorists & hostages at the airport absolutely made my jaw drop: “I’m very glad that, as far as we can see now, this police action was successful. Of course it’s an unfortunate interruption of the Olympic Games, but, I mean, if all that comes out as we hope it will come out, or has come out, I think it will be forgotten after a few weeks.”

Considering that two Israeli team members had already been killed in the Olympic Village, I’m not sure how that would have been possible.

I was familiar with the general story of the Israeli Olympic hostages, but I was not aware of the details. This film really gives a play-by-play and shows the tension surrounding the incident. The documentary made excellent use of footage from the era and interviews and narration from people involved in the incident. The music was indeed badly chosen and distracting.

Also irritating was the film’s tendency to linger on footage of the athletic events themselves, which distracted from the focal point of the movie and added unneccessary length.

Two things that shocked me in this film were the ineptitude – sorry, let’s make that the COMPLETEANDUTTER ineptitude – of the German response and the refusal of the Olympic committee to halt the Games immediately upon receiving news of the hostage-taking and the deaths. Truly unbelievalble…..

Such a sad story.

Quite good, if you’re not familiar with the story of the kidnapping and botched rescue of 11 Israeli athletes/coaches at the 1972 Munich Olympics (the aftermath of which is apparently the basis for Spielberg’s new movie). It tells the story in economic detail, and gives a bit of the background concerning what went wrong in the German rescue attempt.

I wasn’t thrilled with the choice of Michael Douglas as narrator, or with the song choices, both of which I thought took away from the emotional impact of the movie. Also, I think it could have done more to situate the incident in the larger context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as terrorism in general, especially considering how important this issue is for all of us now. But an interesting watch nonetheless.