After the murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 German Olympics the Israeli secret service, Mossad, were sent to wreak terrible vengeance on those it was believed were responsible. Avner is the young man chosen to head up the unit, but as Mossad's assassination team effectively wipes out suspect after suspect he begins to doubt the wisdom of their mission and his ideological faith gives way to guilt and confusion. Munich is an unblemished technical exercise from Spielberg, the action set pieces are tight and tense while the plentiful, increasingly soul searching dialogue captures the characters' uncertain progression. That the movie falters between genuinely intelligent thriller and powerhouse drama doesn't take away from the fact that this is one of the director's best films for a good many years.