‘September 5’ Review: Highlighting The Worst-Case Scenario In Government and Journalistic Incompetence
It is a never-ending battle between when you look at the nation of Israel versus the nation of Palestine.
A battle that traces back to Isaac and Ishmael continues until the second coming of Jesus Christ. But while the battle of Armageddon is a long way away, a smaller scale can be looked at with the 1972 Olympics. The 1972 Summer Olympics was one of the biggest displays of political incompetence the world has ever seen.
For those who are old enough to remember the real-life story as it happened: During the stages of the summer games, a group of Palestinian terrorists kidnapped the Israeli Olympic team and demanded a path of escape while threatening to kill the hostages. After several failed attempts at trying to rescue the Israeli team, the incident ended on the tarmac of an airport involving all of the hostages tragically passing away.
On top of that, you also had the incompetence of the news media who incorrectly reported that all of the hostages had survived, only to have to correct that story with the worst possible news hours later. This brings us to the film, September 5, which looks to recreate that period showing just how out of their depth and unprepared people were for the worst-case scenario.
In the early 1970s, a pre-Disney ABC Network was one of many around the world that was covering the Summer Olympics that were set in Germany in that year. As the people in the control room focused on getting the scoops of the games, an unfortunate turn of events happened when gunfire was heard inside the camp. And before anyone knew it, they were looking at one of the biggest stories of the century.
A group of Islamic terrorists had kidnapped the Israeli Olympic team, and the German police were unprepared for a mass kidnapping situation. On top of this, ABC was desperate to be the face of this story; however, they were struggling to confirm information to control the narrative. But the problem was that if they reported incorrect information of a hostile situation, the network itself may never recover. This film will upset the pro-Palestine people of the world who hate Israel and see them as the villain.
German law enforcement was not prepared for a large-scale terrorist attack involving hostages. What Americans know as a SWAT team did not exist in Germany at that period, and as a result, many untrained police officers were put in the position to try to negotiate with hostages, not knowing how they were going to bring the team home.
Meanwhile, the news media was so concerned about making a name for themselves as being the first outlet to report something that may or may not have been true, that they ended up making the biggest mistake in journalistic history by proclaiming a positive outlook to those at home awaiting the fate of their loved ones, only to turn around and report the worst case scenario to absolute devastation.
‘September 5’ is a film that is not about good guys or bad guys, but rather retelling the events that unfolded in a manner that is as objective as it can be. The film shows a lot of similarities to a 2004 film entitled Live from Baghdad, which was a story about journalists in Iraq in the early nineties during the first Gulf War invasion.
The film puts the audience back into the situation at hand, as audiences relive a traumatic situation that they may have not been familiar with. Because it’s been more than 50 years since this event took place, the film does a brilliant job of sourcing the eyewitness accounts and videos from that time to trace an accurate story about what happened in that horrific period.
The film has a wonderful cast of actors who play their roles to perfection. This is a story-driven film, but the only negative here is the film tries to present this honest and noble view of journalism that Hollywood loves to promote. But it downplays the media’s role in this tragedy in putting the hostages’ lives in danger and misleading millions around the world about the events that took place.
September 5 is one of the strongest films of the year and is one that is deserving of its award season recognition.
NEXT: ‘A Real Pain’ Review – A Conflicted Bloodline of Charming Sadness
PROS
- Beautiful Cinematic Storytelling
- Great Ensemble Acting
- Tension Filled Conflict
CONS
- Doesn't Hold Journalists Responsible For Their Roles
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