The Debt (2011)

Memorable, crazy movie

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The movie is supposed to be on the death camp doctor Joseph Mengele and the Mossad attempt to capture him, the sterling performances by Helen Mirren and Jessica Chastain do not make up for glaring omissions in the plot. No scenes were depicted of what Vogel (Mengele) got upto in the concentration camps, in fact no scenes depicted in camps at all, so no context or background is indicated. The movie builds up to quite a crescendo in the end, then falls dead flat without any conclusion at all at the end, which is a complete anticlimax.

I mainly knew about this film because of the leading actress, having seen the DVD cover many times, apart from that I didn't have a clue what the plot or story involved, I hope it may be something worth passing the time with, directed by John Madden (Mrs Brown, Shakespeare in Love, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel). Basically in 1965, Mossad agents Rachel (Jessica Chastain), Stephan (Marton Csokas) and David (Sam Worthington) are in East Berlin, they are assigned to kidnap Nazi Dieter Vogel (Quantum of Solace's Jesper Christensen), aka The Surgeon of Birkenau, a war criminal who carried out medical experiments on Jews during World War II. During the process, Stephan tells Rachel that David lost his entire family in The Holocaust, this drives his dedication to their mission, but also makes his hesitant to become emotionally involved with her, both Stephan and David are attracted to Rachel, she is attracted to David, but sleeps with Stephan. The group are successful in the abduction, with Rachel injecting the doctor with sedative during an examination, but fail to bring him to the west side, so they are forced to hold him in an apartment building, taking turns to monitor and feed him. But one night, following a severe beating from David, Vogel manages to cut through his bonds and escapes, but the trio of young agents lie to their government, telling them that Rachel killed the doctor while he was running away. More than thirty years later, in 1997, the three agents are honoured as heroes, Rachel's daughter Sarah Gold (Romi Aboulafia) is releasing a book about the mission of her mother and the two other agents. The three former agents, Rachel Singer (Dame Helen Mirren) who still bares the scar across her face, Stephan (Tom Wilkinson) who is now a paralytic in a wheelchair, and David Peretz (Ciarán Hinds) who is missing, they are now all retired. Rachel still feels uncomfortable about the lie they have been living with, out of the blue David appears in Tel Aviv and commits suicide, Stephan investigates his death. Soon enough it is discovered that Dieter Vogel is alive in a hospital in Kiev, Ukraine, and will be interviewed by a journalist, it is discovered the man is an impostor, but Rachel is shocked to see the real Vogel. Rachel is determined to travel to Kiev and conclude what should have been done all those years ago, in a confrontation Vogel stabs Rachel twice with a pair of scissors, but she kills Vogel with a poisonous syringe in the back, as she limps away, a note she wrote for journalists telling the truth about their mission is discovered, to be relayed to the world. Mirren with her short time on screen is fine, and Chastain then a rising star proves herself, there are some gripping enough action style sequences, fights and a botched mission, the switching backwards and forwards in time a little distracting, and the choice of actors playing the younger and older characters is questionable, when they don't look much like each other, is is mostly slow, but a relatively interesting spy drama thriller. Okay!

But first, what great casting. The three main characters are at first in their twenties, then, with different actors, thirty years later but are almost completely credible as older versions of themselves.Jessica Chastain/Helem Mirren is Rachel, one of three Mossad agents who aim to abduct a Nazi war criminal in East Berlin and get him back to Israel for trial and execution. Their way of getting him is plausible and well acted, produced and directed. Alas, things go wrong, they get him but can't get him out of Berlin, then he escapes, nearly kills Rachel and so they conspire to tell their masters that they did kill him. They have to live with the deception until much later Rachel's daughter writes a book all about her wonderful mother. The other two agents David and Stefan have to cope with Rachel who is on her first mission. Relationships develop of course.In my view, Ciaran Hinds as the older version of Stefan, looks more like the younger version of David. But apart from that, it is such a dramatic and gripping movie. I give it a 9.The very different point is that this is a movie about an operation that basically has failed. All along, we are expecting them to succeed just like almost every other spy story.

" The debt " is about three Mossad agents which live with and suffer from a simple lie for over two decades . They made a slight change in their story when they came back home , which deceived their government and made them popular among people. In 1965 , Mossad agent Rachel Singer arrives in East Berlin to meet with fellow agent David Peretz and Stephen Gold . Their mission is to capture an infamous Nazi war surgeon who experimented unspeakable tests on Jews during WWII and give him what he truly deserves, justice.A skillfully made movie which will catch your eyes and will tell you two different version of one story , a fake one which was made by the agents to deceive the government and was meant to be the key to the agents' freedom , and the real version which could have been a disaster and turned them into criminals who betrayed their country . One of the best scenes in the movie is when they kidnap the notorious surgeon with their considerable plan that seems flawless and with a brilliant teamwork which ends in an outstanding success. This scene wants us to be patient and hold our breath till it finishes. Jessica Chastain as the main role is quite believable and her performance is rather moving.I believe that if the movie stayed just in the past, now we could have a better movie. Although it is good enough to grab our attention I assume that the writers wanted to add a little mystery to their thriller and create a puzzle in our mind, and regardless of what they did, we don't need to rack our brains to grasp the idea of the movie. All in all it's a watch-worthy movie.