Verdict: 4.5/5
The best part about ‘September 5’, a film that showcases the television coverage of the 1972 terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics, is the lack of action.
We get no perspective from the terrorists or the victims, no scenes inside the athlete’s village, no big finale at the airport.
And that’s the way it should be.
‘September 5’ is not intended to be about the attack itself so much as it is those who reported on it.
We watch on as Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro) and Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin) lead a team of journalists who suddenly go from sportscasters covering the Olympics to broadcasting one of the major news events of the 1970s.
It is every bit as tense as you could imagine a newsroom to be during such an event, with the politics of the media also at play in the background.
There has been some criticism of ‘September 5’, and of the broadcast itself back in 1972, that it glorified violence – that the ABC team of that era made some questionable ethical decisions. But my view, perhaps with a media slant given I work in the industry, is quite the opposite – in fact the movie deals with those ethical challenges, and confronts the reality of getting it wrong – which that famous broadcast partly did, in a massive way.
‘September 5’ offers plenty of insight into how difficult it was to ‘do news’ in those days – with technology and procedures that have long been extinct in modern newsrooms. But it also has you longing for the past at times, when you see true journalists at their best, delivering coverage at its most raw and engaging level.
This is a frenetic movie, with a few light-hearted moments – many of them delivered by translator Marianne (Leonie Benesch), particularly when it comes to a particular cup of tea which becomes one of the few laugh our loud moments of a movie dealing with a difficult subject manner.
This is a terrific movie – and in many ways, it’s landed at an unfortunate time in terms of competition at the box office. Find somewhere to see it – you won’t regret it.
See this movie at Hoyts Penrith.
Troy Dodds
Troy Dodds is the Weekender's Managing Editor and Breaking News Reporter. He has more than 20 years experience as a journalist, working with some of Australia's leading media organisations. In 2023, he was named Editor of the Year at the Mumbrella Publish Awards.