I plan to see Steven Spielberg’s new movie, Munich, regardless of the conservative worries surrounding a Hollywood leftist making a movie about Israel’s (somewhat mythical, by all accounts) response to the killing of Israeli Olympic athletes in ‘72.

Most conservatives that I’ve been reading seem to expect the movie to come across as anti-violence or very vaguely anti-Israel by making it seem that the Israeli intelligence services crossed the “bad guy” line by hunting down and assassinating the people involved in the attack. That may or may not be so and I’m not sure that I’ll trust other reviewers who bring their own expectations and political biases into the theater with them; I want to see for myself.

Spielberg has a tendency, in his “serious” movies, to be a little manipulative, a little mawkish, and a little saccharine. That didn’t stop me from feeling the weight of the Holocaust in Schindler’s List or appreciate his salute to America’s citizen soldiers in Saving Private Ryan. For that matter, Catch Me if You Can was a beautifully told story with a satisfying and honest conclusion.

Of course, he also has the power to churn out deeply unsatisfying movies (this year’s War of the Worlds springs to mind) and deeply flawed movies (A.I. definitely makes that list).

What kind of movie will Munich be? I look forward to finding out. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt, though, because I think he’s earned it.