Like the Kennedy assassinations, the Rabin assassination is surrounded by a lot of unanswered questions. But this dramatization adheres closely to the accepted theory of Yigal Amir as lone killer. The English-language title, "Incitement" (unlike the Hebrew title) hints at the tirelessly repeated accusations that the political right in general, and Bibi Netanyahu in particular, stirred up the deadly animus against Rabin. However, the movie makes a point of accurately showing a couple of incidents that the accusations commonly distort. It shows that a particularly nasty poster of Rabin (dressing him in an SS uniform) was distributed by agent provocateur Avishai Raviv and wasn't really a poster at all but a handbill; and it shows that a coffin carried in an anti-Oslo demonstration was not a symbol threatening Rabin with death but a symbol lamenting the supposed death of Zionism. Where the depiction does go overboard, I'd say, is in emphasizing the tacit support by the religious establishment for an attack on Rabin. Bar-Ilan University, which has a Jewish religious atmosphere but also has secular Jewish students and even Arab students, is portrayed as entirely religious and plastered with anti-Rabin posters on every wall. Rabbis are shown one after another stopping short of disapproval with respect to Amir's intention to kill Rabin.
Despite not spending important time bashing Bibi, the movie does bother at the end to grumble that when he took office, his inaugural speech didn't mention Rabin.
But how is the movie as a movie? you ask. Apart from stating its point of view on the murder (and being released in Israel half a week before an election), it doesn't seem to have much of a message. As an exercise in recreating episodes that are only 25 years old and well remembered from the news, it works well. It blends recreations with authentic footage elegantly. The filmmakers did not employ well-known actors who would have made disbelief difficult to suspend, but the actors handle their parts well. The music is spare and appropriately ominous. But if the movie breaks forth from its narrow focus to imply any larger statement about the human condition, I missed it.
