18/25

It was my privilege to see this excellent film at the AFI Film Festival

Line of Events

During the 1972 Munich Olympics, an American sports broadcasting crew finds itself thrust into covering the hostage crisis involving Israeli athletes..

The film takes place in the ABC control room in Munich for the 1972 Olympics

It realistically portrays both the routine aspects of running a control room during an event and then, of course, the tragic occurrence of the Black September attacks on the Israeli athletes.

The film also accurately shows how technology that was considered cutting edge back then but looks amusingly primitive today (examples include giant VTR machines, competing for satellite space, manually inserting graphics, etc)

The control room is populated by ABC Sports President Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), fledgling producer Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro), VP of Olympic Coverage Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin), and German Interpreter Marianne Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch) who are all excellent in their roles.

Adding to the realism is the use of archival footage of Jim McKay's reporting of the tragedy

But the key aspect to any thriller is the writing and direction by Tim Fehlbaum who keeps you on the edge of your seat for the entire movie.

But that quibble certainly doesn't stop me from highly recommending this excellent film – it is a must see!

My only minor quibble is the casting of Benjamin Walker as Peter Jennings – he doesn't seem quite right to play the handsome and elegant anchor that I remember (I probably would have cut his character and only relied on the tape of Jennings talking from the Olympic village).