Some of the best journalism movies involve real-life figures combating institutions of power, highlighting dynamics that lead to corruption and distrust. All The President’s Men (1974), Spotlight (2016), and The Post (2017) are noteworthy entries in the genre as they demonstrate principled practices of research and investigation into higher authorities of power distorting facts and abusing public trust. Tim Felhbaum’s September 5 (2024) opts for a different perspective. The film chronicles ABC’s sports team springing into action to cover a twenty-hour hostage ordeal, where a group of militant Palestinian group took nine members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage during the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany.
Many may remember Steven Spielberg’s Munich (2005), which covered the same event and Israel’s response through covert operations. September 5 is focused on ABC’s overnight sports team that became the unlikely news crew reporting on the world stage the first instance of a live televised terrorist incident. Yet, where Spielberg’s film was a masterful execution of tension, balancing the complex moral terrain of how one responds to violence, September 5 tries to follow through on its nail-biting anxiety of the motley sports crew trying to cover the event without any substantive foundation to explore its subjects and themes of journalistic responsibility.
It’s 1972. In post-war Germany, Munich is hosting the Olympics to contrast the infamous 1936 Summer Olympics, which laid the groundwork for World War II and the Holocaust. It’s viewed as Germany’s opportunity to erase their Nazi past. Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), the executive of the Sports department is ready to depart for the night, leaving the building to his Operations Manager, Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin), an acerbic vanguard of the department and rookie producer, Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro). Soon gunshots are heard in the Olympic Village right behind the studio.
They enlist the help of their German translator, Marianne (Leonie Benesch), to translate German police scanners, realizing that a Palestinian militant organization called Black September has taken Israeli hostages, demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners. “The peace of what would have been called the ‘Serene Olympics’ was shattered,” Jim McKay would infamously state as he began his live broadcast in the same ABC sports studio (archival footage of McKay is utilized throughout the film).
Under the guidance of Arledge, the team seizes the opportunity to be the only news station to report on something monumental and tragic. Arledge instructs them, “We put the camera in the right place and follow the story as it unfolds in real time.” He emphasizes, “News can tell us what it all meant after it’s all over,” which he believes reluctantly. “This is our story, and we’re keeping it,” a fine point that Arledge ends his speechifying to unite the team.
The film seems content on telling the story of this crew in real-time as they desperately try to provide constant coverage and information—sometimes unconfirmed to the discomfort of Bader—as long as it fuels Mason’s fierce desire for propulsive coverage. Mason manages the team on the technical difficulties of providing live coverage, sneaking in reporter Peter Jennings (Benjamin Walker) inside the hotel complex, moving a TV news camera rig outside the studio to provide live coverage, and disguising one of their own as an athlete to transport 16mm film cartridges and retrieving back B-roll footage.
These scenes are tightly paced and filled with immediate anxieties as characters improvise their capabilities and face difficulties in the new age of televised reporting. It’s the most engaging and dazzling sequence, as the team circumvents numerous obstacles without a template.
Editor Hansjörg Weißbrich maintains a brisk pace and palpable suspense, intersplicing the real ABC news coverage with the newsroom character dynamics, Felhbaum and cinematographer, Markus Förderer, utilize a handheld style to sustain a claustrophobic feel of immediate adrenaline, as Mason and his crew disseminate confirmed and unconfirmed reports, what images to lead the coverage, and if they’re even technically capable of launching a live broadcast with the limited resources available. The film is compelling and surprisingly entertaining as a thriller, where we sadly do not know the outcome. The unified ensemble makes every scene riveting, as their dynamics clash with their moral and ethical principles when navigating an escalating event changing by the minute.
Magaro delivers his best work yet, as the eagerly ambitious producer focused on communicating the events as efficiently and clearly as possible. There’s a visible tenacity when tasked with producing the best broadcast of his life while executing decisions that may surpass his colleagues’ apprehension. One moment he realizes the terrorists can watch the live coverage in their room and questions if that gives them an advantage as to what local authorities are planning. It’s in these moments that Magaro’s wide-eyed excitement and drive become apparent.
His back-and-forth pull with Bader is equally gripping, as Chaplin imbues Bader with a background of history and experience that comes out in bursts of unexpected humor and moral quandary. His adamance in providing accurate and verified reports clashes with the sensationalism he believes puts the hostages in jeopardy. Meanwhile, Scarsgaard remains an authorial voice of guidance and leadership, as Arledge remains in his office for the majority of the film, arguing with ABC News about their ownership of the story, what timeslots to report on, and having a helicopter to use at their disposal. It’s another great performance for the always-reliable character actor.
Benesch gives the film its beating heart and best performance. Marianne is the only woman in the newsroom, often relegated to grabbing peoples’ coffee and stuck in a room translating German police reports. Yet, her conviction in the safety of the Israeli athletes is rooted in the generational guilt she feels as a German. She toes the line between this guilt and trying to defend and represent her country in the best way possible. It’s a layered performance that Benesch is more than capable of handling, often being the significant voice in a noisy room, as she has the tasks of transcribing information no one understands providing an intelligent and emotional resonance.
September 5 has the unfortunate timing of coming out after a year of the Israel-Hamas war, and it should not have the responsibility to address this since it was in production before the war started. Yet the shadow greatly looms over the film when it tries to wrestle with complex issues of Germany’s displacement of its violent past to the Palestinian militant group. The film isn’t interested in examining the historical context between Israel and Palestine, thus rendering the many affirmations for journalist truth and the safety of the hostages meaningless.
Unintentionally, the film can come off as a piece of propaganda painting Palestinians exclusively in a negative light, as Fehlbaum seems interested in providing empty thrills with slight contemplative internal wrestling.
The film’s screenplay (co-written by Fehlbaum, Moritz Binder, and Alex David) never provides space or dialogue for these issues, as Mason and Arledge insist on taking ownership of a complicated story, it furthers a sensationalist reaction. Felhbaum wants to present an apolitical perspective focused on the integrity of presenting facts and not wading into politics, yet undercuts his efforts when Mason is more interested in sensationalizing his images. “That’s the opening shot,” a mesmerized Mason states as he reviews B-roll footage of a Palestinian terrorist in a stocking mask overlooking the balcony.
The film posits itself as a courageous act of ethical journalism, with the underprepared crew making on-the-fly decisions on how to cover the hostage crisis right in their backyard of the Olympic Village, yet never provides space to excavate their stance on how their journalistic purity is masking a desire for sensationalism.
When September 5 ends with a text saying, “Over 900 million people watched the broadcast,” cynically, all I can take away is that the views are all that matters.
Review Courtesy of Amritpla Rai
Image Courtesy of Variety via Paramount