September 5
September 5
"September 5" is a historical drama film directed by Tim Fehlbaum that focuses on the 1972 Munich Olympic hostage crisis from the perspective of the ABC Sports crew. The film highlights their transition from covering the Olympics to reporting on the hostage situation involving Israeli athletes, and showcases the intense and emotional experience of live broadcasting during a global tragedy.
rg9400 reviewedMarch 8, 2025
I was very excited for this movie, thinking it could be a pulse-pounding and scathing look from inside a terrorist attack, showcasing nuances in terms of both the geopolitical ramifications and causes as well as the journalistic ethics behind covering it. This movie is not that. It feels completely limp and perfunctory for most of its runtime. First off, this movie does not even remotely tackle the geopolitical aspects of the attack. The most it talks about is the fact that it occurred in Germany during a Holocaust rememberance anniversary despite the parallels and complexity of how it relates to the existing Israel-Palestine conflict. Second, while the movie is ostensibly about journalistic ethics, it doesn't really go into depth there outside of maybe its ending when it finally tries to highlight a specific moral quandry. Yes, there are moments where characters parrot questions about whether or not they are helping the terrorists by covering the story, but there are plenty of movies that focus on these types of themes with way more nuance, e.g. last year's Civil War or Nightcrawler. Part of the reason is that those stories are fictional and are able to actually craft complex characters whose interiority reflects some of these larger thematic questions. Because this movie is fixated on a real event, it seems like the writers were scared of actually portraying any of the characters as anything more than props. To be honest, I am already confusing all the characters since they blend together so much. Finally, while this movie uses a rapid score similar to Saturday Night to convey a feeling of tension of suspense, there really isn't much. The entirety of the movie is portrayed from the perspective of the journalists who are so detached from the actual attack and the victims that it never really creates any sort of tension within the audience -- we are not scared about what will happen because the focus is on how to cover the event, not the event itself. The end result is a movie that has some weak messaging but not much else going for it.