‘September 5’ Review: Bad News
Should you wish to relive a past tragedy (and a teeny tiny question: have you not had your fill of late?), there are many films you could watch about the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, during which, as you surely know, militants from a Palestinian terrorist organisation took members of the Israeli national team hostage and, over a series of horrible days, killed them. Kevin Macdonald’s Oscar-winning 1999 documentary One Day in September; Steven Spielberg’s slightly fuzzy 2005 flick Munich about Israeli retaliation; countless more on-screen dramas exploiting the tension of this unthinkable situation which played out with the world watching. And now there is September 5, a movie with an intriguing-enough approach which unfortunately stumbles at almost every hurdle.
This film’s title refers to the date on which members of Black September raided the Olympic village. Two of Israel’s athletes were killed immediately, while the nine remaining were held over two days and killed during a failed liberation attempt at a nearby military base. September 5 chooses to tell this very familiar story, not through the lens of the athletes or the terrorists or those negotiating the conflict, but the American news reporters who were stationed at this historic Games – Germany’s first and only since 1936 – simply to cover sports for network ABC Sports. They were better-versed in punching than politics, track and field than terrorism, etc.
Not a bad idea to view this tragedy from the perspective of the journalists: no conflict is made less intriguing from having a tight focus. Here we have Geoffrey Mason (played by Past Lives’ John Magaro, bringing a warmth to proceedings) as our put-upon, heroic producer who must make some difficult decisions, for which he is highly praised. Then there is Gary (Daniel Adeosun), who sneaks into the Olympic village disguised an athlete, with film roll Sellotaped around his torso so that they can continue filming. He is duly congratulated. At times, September 5 resembles a corporate video for ABC: the kind they would broadcast new recruits on an induction day before handing you a tote bag and water bottle. (The film is interspersed with footage from the ABC archives while the Olympic offices have been faithfully replicated.)
Some of the dilemmas are intriguing: how they were able to sneak cameras into the shut-down village, the news room’s collective gulp when it becomes clear that the Black September militants could watch the coverage on their television screens. This was the first act of terrorism to be broadcast on the news, we are informed as the credits roll, and there were clearly some speed bumps (not that it stopped anyone watching: an estimated 950 million people tuned in). Even if this often feels like propaganda, and the journalistic ethics are communicated in the style of a textbook made for particularly thick dummies, there is momentum in the set-up.
Swiss writer-director Tim Fehlbaum has insisted that September 5 is not really about politics but the media, echoing a line from producer Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard) who says, early on in the film, that ABC’s sports coverage is “not politics” but “drama, emotions”. As Arledge finds out, and as Fehlbaum’s film proves, that turns out to be a difficult circle to square.
There are frequent, boring jabs towards German interpreter Marianne (Leonie Benesch, turning in a refreshingly grounded performance) about her native country’s actions over the last century (at one point, an ABC producer snaps and asks what her parents were doing during the war). The Germans, thank to the police force’s ostrich-like approach to terrorism, take a beating throughout the film. As Marianne explains, in one of this film’s frequent layovers into exposition: “They’re just making one mistake after another, trying to act like they’ve got it all under control.”
Those easy, quite boring jokes are contrasted by a total unwillingness to explore the motivations behind the terrorists’ actions, an approach which comes across as stubborn rather than apolitical. If one reason for attempting an apolitical approach had been to keep attention on the hostages as people rather than political pawns, it unfortunately has the opposite effect: there are very few stakes here.
So you are left with... well, what exactly? To call this film a thriller is strange, because we know how the events unravel, and despite the trailer’s framing, it never feels truly exciting. Perhaps the most shocking thing is that, with 15 minutes to go, an intriguing plot point emerges from this bland wreckage. But it’s too late to turn this thing around. The film is too scared of saying the wrong thing that it does not say anything interesting at all. It is a Wikipedia entry caught on camera.
‘September 5’ is out now in cinemas
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