Hot on the heels of Companion comes another film whose title causes unnecessary confusion in the booking process, September 5.

This historical thriller recounts the 1972 Olympics hostage crisis, when 11 Israeli athletes were murdered by the terrorist group Black September, from the perspective of the ABC Sports crew televising the events live from Munich. Swiss director Tim Fehlbaum keeps a taut focus on the control room for a brisk 90 minutes, while bringing in just enough context about post-war Germany to illustrate the wider stakes.

But that tight focus on the media reaction comes at the expense of humanity – and while the drama does raise questions over the role of the media in terror attacks and their complicity in chasing ratings, the movie seems more interested in fetishising old-school broadcast techniques than grappling with those issues.

This could be seen as deliberate provocation, but for a film about people neglecting the humans in the story they are telling, the filmmakers leave themselves open to the same charge as their characters; too pleased with their clever recreations to dig into the moral complexities they present.

And as a recreation the movie excels, seamlessly integrating archival footage from the real ABC broadcast into its studio action. Fehlbaum combines the single-location thriller and media ethics with economy and efficiency, even if its lack of moral or narrative depth makes September 5 less than vital to the cinematic calendar.