During the 1972 Munich Olympics, an American sports broadcasting crew finds itself thrust into covering the hostage crisis involving Israeli athletes.
After another day of Mark Spitz winning swimming gold medals, gunshots are heard at the Olympic Village, just a few blocks away from ABC’s temporary headquarters. The broadcast team includes the executive in charge Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard); smart and testy head of operations Marvin (Ben Chaplin); local German translator Marianne (Leonie Benesch); and young producer Geoff (John Magaro), meant to cover an uneventful day of boxing and volleyball, who winds up landing on something much more significant. The film details all the logistical hurdles the team needed to scale so they could capture the crisis as it happened, relying on massive TV cameras, smuggled 16mm film stock, a slew of walkie talkies and plenty of ingenuity. Even more importantly, the movie tackles the tough questions faced by several hardworking newsmen - and one vital female translator - as they dealt with a situation in which many human lives hung in the balance. The film focuses mainly on the coverage of the situation, not really concerning itself with the politics behind it – it can be compared to Spielberg’s ‘The Post’. (Some subtitles)
Germany 2024 Tim Fehlbaum 91m
