During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, an American sports broadcasting team must adapt to live coverage of the Israeli athletes being held hostage by a terrorist group.

‘September 5’ is a tense drama about journalistic ethics and making important decisions in the heat of the moment, set against the backdrop of the horrific events at the 1972 Munich Olympics when terrorists took 11 Israeli athletes hostage. The movie follows the ABC Sports crew who were based very close to the Israeli athletes apartments within the Olympic Village, and as such, had a unique vantage point to follow the events as they unfolded, as they face difficult decisions on how to cover the incident.

It’s not a starry cast (with the greatest respect), led by Peter Sarsgaard, which helps the actors to blend into the characters, and their background as sports journalists means they are thrust into covering a situation that is far removed from what they are used to covering. I thought the filmmakers did an excellent job of telling the story and showing the moral dilemmas the crew faced, particularly as they realised their coverage could ultimately impact on the outcome of the hostage situation. Sarsgaard is great, as are John Magaro, Ben Chaplin and Leonie Benesch, and I really enjoyed watching them all wrestle with their consciences and debating different perspectives on how to deal with essentially a ticking clock situation that didn’t allow for much more than split second decision making.

From the vantage point of today with the 24 hours news cycle and camera phones galore, it can be hard to think back to a time just over 50 years ago where this was an unusual occurrence, and ‘September 5’ has much to enjoy purely from a standpoint of going behind the scenes of how TV was made at the time, beyond the obvious drama of the story at its heart. I thought this was a terrific movie, well directed and well-acted, with a horrific real life story at its heart, and it is one of the best films of the year so far.

Rating: 4/5

Directed By: Tim Fehlbaum

Starring: Peter Sarsgaard, Ben Chaplin, John Magaro, Leonie Benesch, Zinedine Soualem, Georgina Rich, Corey Johnson and Benjamin Walker

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt28082769/