Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

GrimPrecise I'll tell you why so serious

Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

atlasmb Released only one Olympic cycle after the actual events occurred during the 1972 Olympics, this film documents many of the behind-the-scenes events that happened while the world watched the horrible drama unfold. As a big fan of the Olympics, I was watching as news stories interrupted the peaceful competition to explain the unthinkable had happened.Terrorists had invaded the Olympic compound--the ultimate symbol of peaceful coexistence--and killed Israeli athletes, taking others hostage as leverage to demand the release of comrades held in captivity. As a viewer, I vividly remember the shadowy image of a man on a balcony, a man who threatened the Olympic principles and the world at large, but somehow, though he was visible, was beyond the reach of retaliation. It was frustrating and tragic, but hostages' lives were in the balance.This film was no doubt an attempt to fill in the blanks for many people who only saw those shadowy images from a distance. But is it more than a documentation? Is it a warning to the world or to those who would use terrorism for their political purposes? Or a tribute, perhaps, to those who did their best to tragic events that unfolded or those who were the victims of those who promote the initiation of violence (even against civilians) as a means to an end?The narrative seems to bear few embellishments to the actual events of 1972. Hostage situations--with all of the accompanying negotiations and strategizing--are dramatic enough. William Holden, as chief of police, adequately portrays a man who will forever second guess his decisions. The leader of the terrorists (Franco Nero), becomes more than a shadowy figure as the film shows moments when his humanity is revealed. Presented with the option to walk away from further bloodshed, he says, "And have people think I am a coward?" When I first heard this line in 1976, I thought it referred to the world at large, but now I wonder if he was thinking about others who sympathized with his world view.

virek213 The nightmarish specter of terrorism on an international level can be said to have its origins in what occurred during September 4th and 5th, 1972 at the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany. For twenty-one hours, the world, having been transfixed by how much the standing of the German nation had improved during these Games from what had been done in Berlin in 1936 under the shadow of Hitler, was horrified by how eight heavily armed gunmen belonging to the Black September terrorist organization had managed to storm the Olympic Village and hold nine Israeli athletes hostage (having already killed two of them). The terrorists' demands, which of course Israel wasn't about to comply with, were the release of two hundred militants from various factions being held in German prisons, or the Israelis would be killed. It all ended in the most horrific way possible at nearby Furstenfeldbruck airport early on the morning of September 5th.The 1976 made-for-TV film 21 HOURS AT MUNICH was really the first dramatic attempt to place these horrific events into context; and given that, when it aired on November 7, 1976, the events were still relatively fresh, it had to have been more than a little painful to watch. That said, this still holds up as a thoroughly well made film about the first act of internationally televised political terrorism. Incredibly filmed on location in Munich itself, the film stars William Holden as Manfred Schreiber, the chief of police in Munich who has to deal with this incredible crisis for which West Germany was woefully unprepared for (deliberately lax security, owing to a desire not to make the Olympic Village seem like a modern-day concentration camp, allowed the terrorists to slip through), with Franco Nero portraying the Black September leader who identifies himself as "Issa". In the main, the approach taken by this movie towards the incident is one resembling a chess game, with nine Jewish pawns in the middle of it all. And when Holden is forced to make the decision to end this thing at Furstenfeldbruck, he is under the assumption that Nero has only four compatriots with him, when in reality it was eight. And with untrained snipers not being told how to coordinate with one another as to the targets, the nightmare that ensues is all but preordained.While it might have been exceptionally tempting for this TV movie, which was scripted by Edward Hume (TWO MINUTE WARNING) and Howard Fast (the author of the source material for Stanley Kubrick's 1960 epic SPARTACUS) from the book of the same name by Serge Groussard, to turn the events into melodramatic fodder, veteran TV and feature film director William A. Graham holds off on that, instead allowing this to become more of a psychological drama in which the entire world was watching. Although much more of the Munich tragedy, including the well-meaning ineptitude of the Bavarian and West German officials and the arrogance of the International Olympic Committee in not halting the games until some eleven hours into the crisis, was shown in the later Oscar-winning 1999 documentary ONE DAY IN September, 21 HOURS AT MUNICH still manages to let a fair amount of that in itself. Holden and Nero are very well matched; and the film also co-stars Shirley Knight, Anthony Quayle, and Richard Basehart (who portrays West German chancellor Willie Brandt).The events of Munich have colored not only the Olympics, both winter and summer, in political and social turmoil of some kind ever since, but a great many sports events around the world, including our Super Bowl and the World Cup. 21 HOURS AT MUNICH, like the later ONE DAY IN September and Steven Spielberg's own 2005 film MUNICH (which looks at Israel's response to the horror), gives us as insightful a glimpse into why this is so as any dramatic presentation could ever hope to accomplish.

ssimon55 The film does a good job of depicting the terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. Unlike "Munich" which only spends a few minutes dramatizing the terror attacks & spends the rest of the film on Mossad actions tracking down the terrorists, this film shows the horror of the terror attack.A much better film on the subject is the documentary "One Day in September" (1999) which won an Oscar for best documentary. The film does a good job of showing the ineptitude of German police forces & the intransigence of the IOC, which would not suspend the games for even one day while the terrorists murdered athletes & held others hostage.

Axi paul well done, i think it is nice movie Franco Nero was amazing, he explained the other side opinion in a very nice way, and the movie show how the politicians in Israel are thinking when they caused this tragedy was always hearing about the conflict in middle east but this movie show me that these Arabs are not killers and they fight for a reason. Franco Nero moved my feeling indeed. why they don't try to make new version of this movie other than Munich, a version for the same story and with a same quality of work, again was really super in his performance.I think the movie didn't show the real true story about this event but at least they were so close to the fact.