The 1972 Munich massacre at the Olympics has expectedly been rich fodder for films and television alike. Adaptive attempts speak to a buzzing need for spectatorship, vicarious consumption of tragedy, and the unfolding terror attack serving as a cornerstone for new global tensions. The incident sends into a tailspin global anxieties, fault lines getting redrawn in its wake. That it happened in Munich in Germany brings to the fore designed repercussions. An opportunity for Germany to course-correct its shameful past, and present a new face that turned into one of its darkest disasters. What could have been a glorious chapter becomes horrific, humiliating, and desperately sad. Tim Fehlbaum’s “September 5” (2024) skates clear of the political mudslinging to veer into the optics and initial real-time presentation of the day’s dramatic events.
It is a quintessential TV newsroom drama, rife with escalating tension. The stakes are especially compounded by the threat posed by the Arab guerilla commandos/terrorists. With every hour, there was a real danger that a hostage would be killed. The seriousness of the situation is paramount, demanding sensitivity. But when there is pressure to be first in broadcasting, how do you ensure fair caution?
September 5 (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
Predictably enough, the film opens where you imagine it to open. It’s the wrap of a hectic day at the sports newsroom of ABC, stationed near the Olympic Village in Munich. The year is 1972. The narration extols the importance of this particular edition of the Olympics. It’s the first year the tournaments will be broadcast. Millions of people would be tuning in to watch the various games. Basically, the whole world is watching. ABC is on the spot to document it all.
Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), president of ABC Sports, is overseeing the exacts and minutiae of the coverage. Every camera footage is under his watch. The night has rolled and Geoff (John Magaro), head of the control room, is expected to take over operations. He’s in the middle of preparing the coverage details when tremors of unusual disquiet creep in. That there’s trouble brewing close is first sensed among them by the newly assigned German translator, Marianne (Leonie Benesch), and a colleague. They hear gunshots. They dismiss it at first but when other sources also affirm, realization hits that there’s shooting going on at the Olympic village, where the athletes are housed.
Disturbing news starts trickling in, accumulated, and verified by various sources. A bunch of Israeli athletes have been taken hostage at their quarters in the Olympic Village. Eleven athletes and coaches are held hostage. Two have already been killed, nine are kept alive for the negotiations in the fray. Who’s behind it? It’s discovered that several pro-Palestine militants are orchestrating the attack. Their demands are unequivocal. A contingent of Palestinian prisoners must be immediately freed. If it isn’t done, the subsequent hours post-noon would see the remaining hostages being massacred.
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Now this is the sports team of ABC. The news journalists of the channel are halfway across the globe. There’s immense pushback which Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin), head of operations, resists. Geoff has his back. Roone fights to have ABC retain a prime slot. He is conceded to for the time being, during which we watch the channel broadcast the hostage situation live.
How does ABC respond to the terror attack?
The team sends cameras to be mounted and aimed at the apartments where they have been held captive. One of them is an American citizen David Berger who had emigrated to Israel. The channel breaches several rules to be the first to deliver the story and garner traffic. Marianne reports on the communications between the police and terrorists. Of course, debates also occur on the exact verbiage. Should the captors be called terrorists? There are sentiments to be heeded.
Germany wouldn’t be willing to station the army officers at the village. The nation is chary how it is perceived, cautioning against the history of its army. Hence, only police officers are posted, most of whom don’t have the requisite training to handle such a complex situation with so many stakes at play. The ABC team has also sent some of its people into the Israel buildings from where they broadcast. Soon, they realize some of the terrorists could also be watching the footage. This can jeopardize the entire police operation to negotiate the talks.
Even the police barges into the ABC newsroom, demanding the broadcast be halted immediately. There’s an alarm but Geoff is adamant and insists the police back off at once. They cannot intervene. The police retreated and the broadcasting continued. However, new, starker developments are in the offing. As per the negotiations, the police drive the hostages and terrorists away from the Olympic Village to the airport.
September 5 (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
What happens to the hostages?
Of course, there are distressing assumptions that the police have decided to move it all to a less crowded space where they can go all out in terms of action. Marianne and a colleague follow the contingent. The road to the airport is all blocked. Ample confusion and chaos persist, everybody, pecking for more scraps of decisive information on the condition of the hostages. Marianne, with her German proficiency, is the ABC team’s best bet for understanding the local scene and relaying the on-field communication with speediness and reliable accuracy.
But Geoff is hungry for the eyeballs. He wants to stave off all of ABC’s competition. Major errors and slip-ups happen in the relay of information, including Marianne telling Geoff the hostages are freed. Marvin insists on Geoff not airing the rumors. It hasn’t been duly verified by other sources on the field. But Geoff is eager and desperate to have the channel break the news. Their anchor, Jim, takes the go-ahead and broadcasts the news. But as Marvin had suspected, the news was false and much worse. The shootings at the airport haven’t stopped. None of the hostages are alive. Geoff has a moment of glory which is brutally snatched as reality hits with bracing, forbidding news. In the hustle of being the first to broadcast, there are major prices to be paid, a heavy weight on the conscience.
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