Munich: The Edge of War
Director: Christian Schwochow
Year Released: 2021
Rating: 0.5
Prior to the start of World War II former schoolmates Legat (George MacKay) and Paul von Hartmann (Jannis Niewöhner) - who both studied at Oxford - find themselves in very different positions: Legat is the secretary to the U.K.'s Neville Chamberlain (Jeremy Irons) while Paul is a translator for Hitler (Ulrich Matthes) ... but wants him arrested. Everyone appears jumpy and understandably shaken, but it never feels like anything's genuinely at stake (which is a crippling flaw) - the story is belabored and draggy and it's not like the audience don't know what's going to happen from the beginning. What's sad is that as I'm writing this as Russia is conducting a full-scale (and illegal) invasion of Ukraine, which unfortunately shows that appeasement doesn't work with madmen: sometimes you need a Churchill.