Director and co-writer Tim Fehlbaum’s September 5 examines the horrifying events of September 5, 1972, when terrorists took 11 Israeli athletes competing in the Munich Olympics hostage. Previous feature films and documentaries have covered the subject, but never from the perspective of the ABC Sports team assigned to cover the competition.
The ABC Sports team was not prepared for the near-instantaneous switchover from heralding athletic achievements in the ring, pool, and on the track to covering a terrorist attack live on air. And how could they have been? No network had ever been in their position before. The ’72 Olympics marked the first-ever live broadcast via satellite around the globe. The network stationed cameras throughout the Olympic venues, the Olympic Village, and atop the Olympic Tower to provide complete, round-the-clock coverage. Nothing would be missed.
Coordinating producer Geoff Mason (John Magaro) was preparing for his first time overseeing live coverage with the B unit when the first shots were fired. Neither producer Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin) nor President of ABC Sports Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard) wanted Geoff in charge as they attempted to determine how to cover the developing situation. The job fell to him by default when no one with more experience was available. And Geoff became laser-focused on providing the audience with the best coverage possible as the devastating events unfolded. (ABC’s ’72 Olympics coverage earned four Emmy nominations and two wins.)
Roone Arledge negotiated behind the scenes to claim more satellite time and refused to hand the story over to the News department in New York. Why give over coverage when the Sports team was 100 feet away from the action? As events in the Olympic Village escalated, decisions were being made in the broadcast booth that would change how networks covered breaking news moving forward.
Arledge’s decision meant his team covering the Olympics had to think outside the box. They also had to consider the unthinkable: can they show someone being shot live on camera? It was quickly apparent that the Germans did not comprehend the gravity of the situation. The host country was showcasing how much they’d evolved since Hitler was in charge. They hoped to dispel any lingering doubts about the country’s progress when, suddenly, the local police were put in charge of negotiating a peaceful resolution to an unprecedented situation. (A law forbids the German army from intervening.)
As the hours ticked by, circumstances forced the ABC Sports team to think about how their coverage hampered the police rescue mission because the terrorists could see their movements live on television. Their actions in ’72 laid the groundwork for what’s still considered off-limits during live coverage today.
Tim Fehlbaum assembled a top-notch cast and crew to bring this riveting story to life. Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, and Ben Chaplin are outstanding as Roone, Geoff, and Marvin, the key figures who provide most of the actual insight into how decisions were made quickly on the fly as the situation developed. Their short, occasionally heated debates over how to show the world the attack feel so genuine that you forget this is based on real events with a known outcome.
Benjamin Walker’s terrific as Peter Jennings, the sole reporter with experience covering the news. (Jennings had already served as a foreign correspondent and established the first American news bureau in Beirut by the time of the Munich Olympics). In one memorable scene, Jennings warns his colleagues not to use the term “terrorist” lightly. Walker’s take on the well-respected journalist hits the right marks, presenting Jennings as maintaining his composure throughout the harrowing events.
September 5 shows Jennings and a cameraman embedded across the street from the apartment of the Israeli athletes and describing events as they went down. The film uses archival footage of Jim McKay anchoring the broadcast, interviewing witnesses, and tossing to Jennings for his eyewitness accounts. It’s a brilliant use of the existing footage integrated into the story. Fehlbaum’s extensive research into ABC Sports’ actual control room during the Munich Olympics makes the archival footage with McKay appear contemporaneously shot with the film.
September 5 showcases McKay’s incredible work during his 16 hours behind the desk. McKay’s words as he informed the viewers of the tragic outcome were gut-wrenching in ’72 and hit just as hard in the 2024 film: “When I was a kid, my father used to say, ‘Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized.’ Our worst fears have been realized tonight. They have now said that there were 11 hostages. Two were killed in their rooms. Nine others were killed at the airport tonight. They’re all gone.”
One pivotal character in the film, German translator Marianne Gebhardt played by The Teacher’s Lounge‘s Leonie Benesch, is an amalgamation of real people. Co-writers Fehlbaum, Moritz Binder, and Alex David inserted Marianne as an important player in obtaining key information as the only person employed by ABC Sports’ control room who speaks German. Benesch portrays Marianne as a largely unassuming individual whose contributions remain unnoticed until the Black September attack on Israeli athletes. Only then does her position as interpreter grudgingly receive any respect. In the first hours of the attack, she’s forced to retrieve coffee for her male co-workers and speak to her country’s Nazi history. Benesch’s performance isn’t flashy, yet it’s incredibly effective in showing how she endures disrespect until her co-workers recognize that she’s integral to their coverage of the attack.
September 5 is singularly focused on the ABC Sports team’s actions from start to finish of the attack. The action rarely shifts outside the building housing the control room, and when it does, it mostly appears as footage on a monitor. The terrorist group Black September’s motivations are not discussed. The characters’ personal lives aren’t mentioned. The editing is tight, the dialogue is crisp, and the tension progressively builds as September 5 heads to the devastating end of the terrorist attack.
That September 5 keeps the audience on the edge of their seats is a real accomplishment. That it does so while exploring the ethical and moral dilemmas news crews face makes it one of the best films about journalists.
GRADE: A
MPAA Rating: R for language
Running Time: 1 hour 34 minutes
Release Date: December 13, 2024 limited, January 17, 2025 wide
Studio: Paramount Pictures
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