THE DEBT 3.0***

In the “The Debt”, three young Jewish Mossad agents in 1966 East Berlin seek to find and capture The Surgeon of Birkenau, a ruthless doctor that performed horrific acts on imprisoned Jews during World War II. We watch them as they prepare for and begin 'The Mission' and follow them through the intricate plot details that, if all goes correctly, will get the doctor across the Berlin wall to West Berlin and then back to Israel to face trial for his heinous actions But things don't go according to plan and soon the three (Rachel, Stefan and David ) are forced to remain in hiding with their prisoner until they can determine a new course of action. Something happens with the doctor and the three of them have to decide how to handle the screw-up and then to agree that it will be their secret… their ‘debt’ to each other. In the more modern times of 1997, we learn that Rachel and Stefan married and divorced, and then David reappears after being away, sees both of them and then commits suicide. Their daughter has written a book about the kidnapping and the days that followed in the apartment detailing her parents as heroes to the cause.

Where "The Debt" excels is in the outstanding performances of its very good cast. Top billing goes to the older versions of the Mossad agents, Helen Mirren (Rachel), Tom Wilkinson (Stephan), and Ciaran Hinds ( David ) and each hold their own. Mirren does a solid job of exhibiting the weight that a 30 year secret leaves on a person As for their younger versions, both Marton Csokas and Sam Worthington give strong portrayals. Jespersen Christensen, too, gives the evil Doctor Vogel a terrifying aura of refined Nazi hatred and menace. But in the end, "The Debt" hangs primarily on the performance of Jessica Chastain as the young Rachel. Her portrayal is measured and cautious and often her best moments are those in which she does not speak but instead lets her eyes and body language do the talking. What is remarkable is that she is an actress that virtually no one had heard of at the beginning of this year (2011). With only a handful of credits to her name, by the end of this year (2011), she will have appeared in no less than six films including “The Help”.

Good movie but I did find some minor annoyances. First, the secret (and thus “the debt”) the characters kept concerning acts they committed were not mere "mistakes."… not "Oopsie! My bad." Rather acts of cowardice and selfishness on an order that bordered on treason. Second, the characters had stupidity beyond typical character weaknesses in that they oddly were derelict in letting their own personalities get in the way of fulfilling their mission. I found it hard to believe that real life Mossad agents would have been that dumb.

Beyond being a thriller, though, this was really about the motives and morals of the people involved. The main theme of the film was always more about the terrible secret the former Mossad agents carried. As the plot unraveled and revealed for us what that secret was, and what that might have meant to the characters, we are presented with a clear case that it was the process of keeping a secret and what it cost them to do so that was the real movie story. The thriller story merely gave us an excuse, an occasion, to glimpse inside the hearts and minds of people in anguish.

Not a cheerful movie, but not overly grim, either. Very well cast, very well acted.


Clark