The Nominees: 'Munich'
"Munich" is up for five Oscars: Best Picture (the award would go to producers Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg and Barry Mendel), Best Director (Steven Spielberg), Best Adapted Screenplay (screenplay by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth), Film Editing (Michael Kahn), and Original Score (John Williams).
Based on the book "Vengeance" by George Jonas and directed by Steven Spielberg, this movie follows the story of five assassins assigned to find the Arab terrorists behind the murders of 11 Israeli athletes and a German policeman inside the 1972 Olympic Village in Munich, Germany.
More from CBSNews.com on "Munich" and on the Oscars...
In an interview with The Early Show, actor Eric Bana explained, "Myself and a group of four other gentlemen, played by an incredible bunch of actors, of course, go off and track down, hunt and kill the people responsible for the attacks. And that's basically what our movie is about."
This is no comic book action movie. Both the assassins and their targets are portrayed as flesh-and-blood people. The hunters try to lure their targets by setting themselves up to be hunted, and "that's where the film starts to kick into another gear," Bana says. "The paranoia and anxiety levels come up in the group. But that definitely ratchets up the drama."
In his review for CBS News Sunday Morning, contributor David Edelstein commented, "In this superb and troubling film, everyone's an avenger, and the cycle of killing never ends."