
Similar stylistically to the way the under-seen Saturday Night movie chronicled the manic real-time energy and high-stakes high jinks of the first SNL telecast circa 1975, Tim Fehlbaum’s authentic historical drama September 5 (B+) showcases pivotal broadcast news events with panache and expert detail; and in this case the stakes aren’t laughs but lives. This sturdy thriller transports viewers to the titular day in 1972 Munich, Germany, when an ABC Sports crew found itself the makeshift coverage team for a terrorism act in progress as Palestinian militant group Black September kidnaps and threatens the lives of Israeli athletes in Olympic Village. Peter Sarsgaard, equipped with the rapier wit and studied precision he leverages for many of his film characters, artfully plays the president of the TV network’s sports division; he’s at the center of the ensemble, but there are at least three others who make a big impact in their roles. John Magaro is a standout as the head of the control room. Leonie Benesch is authentic and dialed in as the intrepid translator for the crew who singularly understands both German and Hebrew. And Ben Chaplin as the wily head of ABC operations is such a cantankerous chameleon in his role he’s fairly unrecognizable from his bumper crop of ’90s performances. Every detail in the movie feels lived-in: the rows of rotary phones, the coveted “bird” for satellite feeds, the darkroom for printing photos, block letters applied by hand to identify talking heads on the newscasts and lots of black coffee and cigarettes. Real footage is wisely integrated when appropriate for the you-are-there vibe. The film’s topics deeply resonate today as many of the geopolitical conflicts presented certainly still loom large. It’s also an instructive showcase of news judgment; as each imperfect executive, segment producer, camera person or anchor makes tough calls in real time, viewers see the consequences play out before their eyes. The drawback to this format is that you’re not in the room where the real events are happening; but Fehlbaum makes a case for the thrill of the race to go live and to “follow the story where it goes” via the voyeurism of live cameras and a feed to the world. For a film largely set in rooms with men talking and outcomes many will know from real life, Spielberg’s 2005 Munich or the 1999 documentary One Day in September, it’s an engrossing crackerjack production.