What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that this movie isn't for kids. It deals with difficult ethical, political, and emotional issues, including terrorism, assassination, national identity, and personal responsibility. The film includes graphic violence: a fast-cut, swish-panny reenactment of the 1972 Black September assault on the Israeli athletes in their Olympic Village apartment, TV footage from that standoff, with cuts to tearful viewers (this ordeal serves as flashback material throughout the film). The assassinations portion includes images of explosions; shootings (mostly at close range, one sniper shot as well, resulting in a bloody head); dismembered limbs; bloody bodies; brain matter; a dead woman's exposed breasts and crotch. Characters drink and smoke. One man is left naked and dead following his night with a seeming prostitute (she's a paid assassin); a scene where the protagonist makes love to his wife is intercut with the murders of nine Israeli athletes at the Munich airport.
- Families can talk about the justifications for vengeance. When does it ever make sense, and for whom? Is it possible to put an end to the cycles of revenge and terror? While the film has drawn some criticism for questioning Israeli counterterrorism tactics, how does it argue against terrorism and endless wars more broadly, as these traumatize soldiers and survivors even as they destroy victims? What challenges and decisions did the filmmaker face in portraying both sides of the story?