Courtesy Netflix
Old Oxford pals Hugh (George MacKay of 1917) and Paul (Jannis Niewöhner, Cortex) have long been separated due to their politics—one finds solace in Neville Chamberlain’s (Jeremy Irons) appeasement strategy and the other in the the nationalism of Nazi Germany. They aren’t on speaking terms, but for reasons unknown Paul has joined the resistance to Hitler (Ulrich Matthes in one of the worst portrayals of Hitler put to screen). MI6 requests Hugh meet with Paul as a contact, but Paul’s got his own plans. As expected, they go through run-of-the-mill Nazi spy scares set during the 1938 Munich Conference.
Both Hugh and Paul are intolerably bad spies. Horror-movie-lead-running-right-into-the-murderer bad. Each looks panicked anytime they do anything, even when they walk, and they’re overheard far too often to help the fates of their respective nations—a set of squirrel spies on the job would yield better results, making emotional beats in Munich akin to a roller coaster. Characters scream, for example, seemingly due to director Christian Schwochow’s fear the audience might get bored. It’s also a never-ending collection of chaotic quick-cuts that try and fail to distract from the badly constructed screenplay from Ben Power and Robert Harris, who penned the book on which it is based.
A pro-Chamberlain film isn’t on anyone’s bucket list, is it? Munich portrays him as the hidden genius whose actions allowed the UK to triumph in WWII. Uh, OK. Brave opinions aside, we’re stretched between a bargain bin knockoff of Darkest Hour, plus a bad try at Tarantino, plus astonishing homoerotic tension. Make that movie next time, geez!
Even so, Munich is semi-enjoyable in the way one might still enjoy monster-smash movies. It’s a stupid bad-spy movie with no restraint where it needs it and all the restraint where it doesn’t. Even still, some sequences are genuinely tense, the actors are all good looking and it’s a period piece fan’s delight. Just don’t try to dig deep.
6
+Dumb enough to be enjoyable
-Bad political analogy; plot beats are tired
Munch—The Edge of War
Directed by Schwochow
With MacKay, Niewöhner and Irons
Netflix, NR, 130 min
