Metacritic reviews

A mixture of well-researched historical fact and pure fiction, “Munich: The Edge of War” is a smart and entertaining thriller that suffers from just one thing: We all know how it ends.

Immersively crafted but never emotionally involving.

An ingenious, elegant counterfactual drama.

An enjoyable World War II spy flick, Munich: The Edge Of War scores with strong performances and filmmaking craft, but is let down by a lack of dramatic heft. A Father’s Day watch in waiting.

There’s something deeply moving, almost tragic, about a good man being slowly enveloped by the dark times around him. Munich captures it nicely.

In place of depth, MacKay and Niewöhner invest Legat and Hartmann’s relationship with a watchable if uncomplicated friction, but it’s when the Führer himself first appears, more than half an hour into the film, that things really start to cook.

Director Christian Schwochow’s staging is unostentatious to the point of coming across as pedestrian, but the film is ultimately engaging thanks to the dilemmas wrestled with by the script.

Ironically, the project’s occasional attempts to pass itself off as a political thriller slow the material down. The run time doesn’t help. A worthwhile historical curio, nonetheless.

MacKay is muted; his character is teased for his reserve, a quality he shares with the film. Niewöhner gives the sparkier performance, as a passionate German nationalist whose loyalty has flipped.

The best thing to say about “Munich: The Edge of War” is that it has an interesting take on Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister who preceded Winston Churchill. In the opinion of many historians, it’s not the correct take, but at least the movie has a point of view.