More to the point, ''Munich" unfolds within a cinematic reality that may be the only world Spielberg really knows. On those terms, though, the movie is a fascinating provocation -- an inquiry into the spiritual costs of revenge.
The subject is the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes by the Palestinian Black September terrorist group at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich and, more pertinently, the Israeli response: a top-secret assassination campaign, authorized by Prime Minister Golda Meir and carried out by the security agency Mossad, aimed at wiping out those who had planned the attack.
This is the genre of ''Topaz" and ''Day of the Jackal" -- big cast, lots of European capitals, whispers in alleyways alternating with sudden death -- except that Spielberg doesn't play it that way. He dispenses with the cliches of datelines (no ''Saturday, June 15, Brussels") and casts for effectiveness rather than star-power. Eric Bana is the big name here, and if you're saying '' Who?" that's the point. (He was Hector in ''Troy" and the Hulk in ''Hulk.")
Bana plays Avner, the handsome yet somehow unformed young agent assigned to lead the Israeli executioners. He gets a nod from the Prime Minister (Lynn Cohen), kisses his pregnant wife (Ayelet Zurer, ''Nina's Tragedies") goodbye, and delivers himself into the hands of his Mossad keeper, Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush). ''You're ordinary," Ephraim says, explaining why Avner has been chosen. ''You're not a Sabra Charles Bronson."
The instructions are simple enough: Mossad provides the targets, Avner's team dispatches them. Keep to Europe. No bellhops or civilians, please. If you're caught, we never heard of you.
