Andrew Sarris on Spielberg's Munich

Andrew Sarris at the New York Observer is one of the few critics who has real criticisms of Spielberg's latest film:

Mr. Spielberg, Mr. Kushner and Mr. Roth have chosen to show all the doubts and hesitations over the use of terror on the Israeli side, but what of the Palestinian side? Are there any doubts and hesitations there? Mr. Spielberg and company don’t say. They have been deservedly praised for not demonizing the Palestinians and for not exulting mindlessly in the revenge of the Israelis. But is this a sufficient statement about the impasse between Israel and the Palestinians that persists to this day? Mr. Spielberg and company are clearly opposed to violence in the affairs of men and of nations—yet I’m reminded of George Orwell’s famous essay on Ghandi and his call for nonviolence to liberate India from British rule. Orwell noted that Ghandi relied on an outburst of outraged world opinion to assist him. That was all very well, Orwell argued, with a comparatively mild colonial power like Britain. But what if Ghandi had tried the same tactic in Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union? He would have been silenced in a Siberian gulag in no time flat.