The beautifully filmed, disturbingly intense Munich is a film you have to prepare yourself to see. Steven Spielberg's Munich is a dark look at the ugliness of terrorism, hate and violence.

For those of us born in the mid-1980s, the historical events the movie is based on may be a little confusing, so here is a summary: At the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Palestinian terrorists held hostage and killed nearly a dozen Israeli athletes.

According to this film, Israel launched a team of assassins to eliminate those suspected of having a hand in the killings.

This is where we meet Eric Bana, an Australian actor so talented I couldn't believe I hadn't seen him onscreen before.

Bana plays Avner, a young Israeli asked to leave his pregnant wife and head up the assassin squad. The movie is really a story within a story, as we watch kind and thoughtful Avner's downward spiral into frustration and paranoia amid the conflict surrounding his homeland. I haven't heard a lot of buzz about Bana's incredible performance, and that's a shame.

The team of assassins are perfectly cast, especially Daniel Craig as a tan blond with a perpetually unbuttoned shirt. The team gets most of the darkly comic moments, as we see them bonding over cooking, family and murder.

The first half of the movie is devoted to the retaliation, and each murder is its own gripping, terrifying episode, as there are no pull-away shots, no smooth draws of the gun or quippy one-liners.

The Palestinians catch on and kill in retribution for the assassinations. From here, lines get blurred, and I felt hopelessly frustrated..

Spielberg made this movie at the perfect time; take away all the frumpy '70s clothes, and it could be today in the Middle East.

If that doesn't motivate you to see this movie, take my film buff friend's advice: Spielberg makes a great movie every eight years, so unless you know where you'll be in 2014, go see Munich.

--Reviewed by Kathryn Stevens