The Debt

If The Debt were a book, it would be one bloody page turner
I saw an advance screening of The Debt tonight. I'll admit, it was a film I kept my eye on once I read about it on the IMDb message boards for Avatar some time ago, since Avatar was another film with Sam Worthngton. I remember it looking pretty interesting, however I'd not heard about it for some time after due to the delays. However during July, it had gotten advertised more, and I was ready to mark down August 31st as a "must see" date. However when I got a pass in an Alliance Films giveaway, I was excited.

And thankfully this movie did not disappoint. The movie comes out next week, I'd say go see it.

A remake of the 2007 Israeli flick of the same name, which I'll admit to having not seen, The Debt follows two of three secret agents who went on a mission to capture the surgeon of Birkneau, and bring him to Israel to expose him for the crimes he committed against Jewish humanity during WWII. His horrifying experiments have left thousands dead in brutal and gory...

A great cast but otherwise disappointing
The Debt (an American remake of a 2007 Israeli film of the same name) is best described as a story on two levels. On one level, it's a melodramatic espionage thriller that takes places in the 1960's, while on the other, it's a mystery that unfolds thirty years later, one that is centered around the events of the original espionage mission. The film cuts back and forth between these two story lines, with a different trio of actors portraying the three main characters in each story line.

In 1966, a trio of Israeli Mossad agents - Rachel Singer (Jessica Chastain), David Peretz (Sam Worthington) and Stefan Gold (Marton Csokas) - are sent behind the Iron Curtain in East Berlin to kidnap an escaped Nazi war criminal, Dieter Vogel (Jesper Christiansen), the infamous "Surgeon of Birkenau". The mission goes awry when, after successfully capturing Vogel, the plan to smuggle him out of East Berlin is disrupted and they are forced to go into hiding while they try to make other...

A strong adult thriller with a great lead performance.
Director John Madden had a smashing back-to-back period in 1997-1998 with "Mrs. Brown" and "Shakespeare in Love", but since then he has been unable to replicate that level of success. "The Debt", a remake of a 2007 Israeli thriller of the same name, is his best film since that period, and deserves a wider audience than it is likely to find in theatres after more than a year spent in limbo due to the difficulties of its distributor. Madden and his cast and crew deliver a very solid adult-oriented Cold War thriller. Spoilers follow.

Our story takes place both in East Berlin in 1966 and Israel in 1997 (I would estimate the split to be perhaps 70/30 in the favour of 1966). It opens with a book launch celebrating the exploits of three Mossad agents in killing a Nazi war criminal: agents Rachel Singer (Helen Mirren), David Peretz (Ciaran Hinds) and Stephan Gold (Tom Wilkinson). We also see the mission in question, where the trio (played in 1966 by Jessica Chastain, Sam...

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