Munich, and he who lives by the sword dies by the sword

There's an incredible scene in Steven Spielberg's Munich when the protagonist, Avner, dismantles the room he is sleeping in. He killed a man with a bomb hidden in a telephone. So he dismantles his telephone. He killed a man with a bomb in a television set. So he dismantles the television set. There is no bomb underneath his bed. He ends up sleeping in the closet, gun in hand.

In these violent movies we get the fantasy of unbridled power. That is what a gun means. But the truth is that everything goes both ways. You can kill with a gun, but you are also vulnerable to a gun. It's not so much fun to have a gun pointed at you. And the truth is that you can just as easily be the guy with the gun pointed at you. Eventually, Avner's actions catch up to him and his group. They are hunted themselves by other clandestine groups. He loses friends. He knows how vulnerable people can be where they live and sleep, and he is a person, he is the same as his victims. So he takes apart his room.

Munich to me is the anti-Quentin Tarantino. I'm not the biggest Tarantino fan. Not at all. He has talent in his stylized camera action, but his characters are cartoony, loud and without conscience. Munich depicts a man thrust into a revenge movie plot, except this man flinches when he kills. He takes pains to only kill those who deserve death. He questions his mission, ultimately, and he cares more for the love of his wife and child than he does for revenge. 

This makes the movie more impactful. It's not a set-piece cartoon. The protagonist is human. He's down-to-earth, at his core he has humane values. He could be one of us. He's not someone out of a movie. 

The movie also has the Spielberg magic, the clever camera angles which draw you in and then with a subtle shift, take you somewhere else. You see explosions not being neat little fireballs, but chaotic unbridled and uncontrolled forces which spray glass on the street and pummel innocent bystanders. This might be the best action movie I have ever seen.