Movie Review - "September 5"

History lesson, kids.

The events surrounding the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich took place fifty-three years ago, and if you are under the age of 60, there is a good chance that you have no first hand memory of the event.  I was 21 at the time and vividly remember watching all of it unfold on live television as Jim McKay earned a spot in broadcasting history as he reported from ABC Sports Olympic Studios from the time the story broke, until he uttered those terrible words "They're all gone."

The movie "September 5" looks at this even from the point of view of the ABC producers, directors, cameramen, and other technicians as they scrambled to cover what was then a simply unbelievable story.  The heroes of the story prove to be ABC Sports Executive Producer Roone Arledge (Peter Skaarsgard) and second line director Geoff Mason (John Magaro) who was manning the graveyard shift in the ABC control room when all hell broke loose in the Olympic Village.

Someone who has come of age while watching news stories on network television and all cable news channels in the 21st century will wonder at how primitive, relative to 2025, broadcast television was back in 1972.  Networks had to schedule time to use communications satellites (something that became a critical factor for ABC during the crisis; the work-around on that was ingenious), and there was even a question within ABC as to whether the "news people" should take over the coverage, rather than all the guys who "only covered sports".  Arledge settled that question, according to this movie, by simply hanging up the phone on the Suits in New York.

This is a taut (95 minutes long) thriller of a movie, and I found myself literally biting my fingernails as I watched, and I knew how the story ended.

As a note to some of my pals:  there is no on screen violence in this movie.  There is no depiction of the conclusion of this event.

I can't recommend this movie highly enough, especially if you are among those who don't remember or even know about this tragic event.

Four Stars from The Grandstander.