28/42

It was an honor to see this excellent film at the AFI Film Festival

Chronology

During the 1972 Munich Olympics, an American sports team found itself forced to cover a domestic crisis involving Israeli athletes.

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

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

The film also accurately shows how technology that was considered cutting edge at the time, but looks amusingly primitive today (examples include giant VTR machines, competing for satellite space, manual graphics insertion, etc)

In the control room are ABC Sports president Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), up-and-coming producer Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro), VP of Olympic coverage Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin) and German translator Marianne Gebhardt (Leonie Benesch) who are all excellent at their roles.

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

But the key aspect of any thriller is the writing and direction of Tim Fehlbaum who keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout the film.

But that complaint certainly doesn’t stop me from highly recommending this excellent film – you have to see it!

My only minor gripe is the casting of Benjamin Walker as Peter Jennings – he doesn’t seem quite right to play the handsome and dapper host I remember (I’d probably ditch his character and just rely on the tape of Jennings’ conversation from the Olympic Village).