Review – One Day in September

Apparently when Palestinian terrorists take Israeli athletes hostage in the middle of the 1972 Munich Olympics, there’s a lot of film shot that can be used to make a documentary later. Fish-in-the-barrel aspects aside, the folks who put this together did get some solid human interest to accompany the archive footage, including an interview with the widow of one of the victims and the sole surviving terrorist. For the most part the power of the tragedy unfolding in front of the cameras offsets a few production weaknesses (such as flimsy computer simulations and the Michael Douglas narration). However, I was bothered by the less than probing analysis of the actions of the German government during and especially after the incident. The documentary touches on the incompetent handling of the attack at the airport and the all-too-rapid release of the three captured terrorists as part of a subsequent incident, but I left with the feeling that more digging could have been done to help answer the audience’s obvious questions without going completely into Jim Garrison territory. However, for coverage of the central events of the crisis this is a fine piece of work. Mildly amusing