Offering various moments of pensive examination into the worth of retribution as well as the violence associated with its pursuit, Munich is a brutal yet conscientious movie. After assaulting the senses with last summer's box-office hit War of the Worlds, director Steven Spielberg puts his serious artiste cap back on with this dramatization of the killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich and the violent response from Israel.

Wasting no time with a buildup, Spielberg opens the film in Munich, as the Palestinian terrorist faction that calls itself Black September gains entry into the Olympic village and proceeds to take the Israeli athletes hostage. With merely a handful of scenes, weaving in actual and recreated moments from the tragedy, Spielberg is able to quickly build tension and uneasiness about the series of events that unfold.

But he also makes it clear that the incident itself will not be a primary focus of the film, as he swiftly gets to the ABC footage of when broadcaster Jim McKay relays the tragic information that "they're all gone." The tragedy is revisited through flashback at various points in the movie, as a series of harrowing and at times, shockingly violent scenes.

Israel's decision for retribution is what makes up the nucleus of the screenplay, written by Eric Roth and noted playwright Tony Kushner (Angels in America). (To get a much more thorough examination of the 1972 incident, see the excellent and enlightening documentary, One Day in September.)

The story specifically focuses on the creation of a covert squad given one central purpose: kill those responsible for Black September. A total of 11 people are targeted by the group's handler, Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush, giving a strong, focused performance), with Avner (Eric Bana), an ex-Mossad agent, serving as the leader of the group of five. Rounding out the squad is a driver (Daniel Craig), a cleanup man (Ciaran Hinds), a bomb maker (Mathieu Kassovitz) and a document forger (Hanns Zischler). Ephraim explains to Avner that bombs are the preferred killing method, as they are likely to generate publicity in the press. He also makes it clear that while the group will be receiving financial assistance in their mission, for all intents and purposes, they don't exist.