Hello, moviegoers! I am here to tell you about Munich - The Edge of War, a political drama film.

World War II is about to begin, and European powers seek to prevent such a conflict by conceeding the Sudetenland (an area from Czechoslovakia) to Germany. Hitl¤er claims Germany has no more territorial claims in Europe and that signing an agreement in which such area is recognized as German will ensure peace. A small group of German anti-nazies knows better, and have the means to prove it.

The core of the movie are the meetings which took in Munich in 1938 in which the corresponding agreement was negotiated. The anti-nazi group is bent on passing a leaked document to an Uk contact which proves that Hitler won't be stopped by the treaty and will continue expanding his territory.

Munich - The Edge of War, is a production from Netflix. As you may have guessed from this fact, it is burdened by some issues.

The mandatory inclusion of minority groups is present, but kept to barely the minimum. It would have gotten a pass from me if they hadn't lampshaded it deliberately. Imagine placing a character belonging to a minoritary ethnic group in some situation in which such character is not out of place... since she is not out of place, you place the focus on her and say "By The Way, She is Our Minority Token Character". Such a wasted oportunity of doing it without getting noticed, but hey, if it was unnoticed, it would not count as political propaganda.

On the other hand, the film feels somehow futile in every aspect. First of all, we all know WWII took place, so desperate attempts from politicians of both the UK and Germany to achieve stable peace are doomed from the get go. You see diplomatic delegates risking their lives in order to pass information back and forth so HItler's ambitions are uncovered and the fraudulent agreement is never signed, and what you are seeing is a struggle which can only end up badly. It has this air of tragic doom in which every action is tainted by depresive filth. Achievements are small, and when the correct people get the correct information, it ends up making little difference. Diplomats are frowned upon for heroic efforts. It is kind of pathetic at times.

However, the biggest issue this movie might suffer is its implicit naivety.
The plot is of the sort in which making Hitler sign an informal offer of friendship in a bar is considered political leverage, because if he ever breaks his promise of being friendly, this signed offer will be shown to the world and the world will know which sort of monster Hitler is. What a crushing blow would that be! Accusing Hitler of breaking an informal deal signed on a spare piece of paper will surely bring such bad PR on him as to force him to stop his armored divisions and ask for forgiveness!

Another thing to consider is that this film is a wasted oportunity for dealing with actual National Socialism and explaining how such ideology came to be. We get some flashbacks for character development in which we can see how National Socialism grew in popularity and had the common people vote for Hitler, but Nazies and Nazies supporters are portrayed as fanatics whose only argument and goal is becoming proud Germans. This is a disservice to History, since the Nazi party had an actual program designed to win the hearts of disfavored sectors of the population (farmers, industrial workers, you name it). I think the film SS: Portrait of Evil did such a better job in this place. In SS, you could see how good people got entangled by the seemengly reasonable promises of National Socialism and ended up giving power to Hitler. Maybe it is an unfair comparison, because SS: Portrait of Evil is a masterpiece, and Munich is... well... Netflix...

And please, could anybody take the role of Hitler without playing him as a caricature of himself? I have seen far worse portrayals of Hitler (The Plot to Kill Hitler comes to mind) but this one is not great either. I think they intended Hitler to come across as a strong leader with a narcisistic streak, but I think he was only creepy. Not in a good way.

I feel bad beating this movie so badly, because it is so much better than the stinking crap I have been reviewing as of late. At the end of the day, Munich - The Edge of War, is just a bit bland. Not boring, but lacking what it takes to be truly great. If Fortress would give you AIDS and Cancer, this one may give you a mild diarrhea at worst. The atmosphere, wardrobe and environment feel quite ok (for a Netflix piece) and the struggle looks real (if futile).

Speaking of Munich, don't you dare mistaking Munich - The Edge of War (2021) with Munich (2005). The Mossad will play baseball with your balls if you do.


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