OPERATION FINALE   2.5****

          Hollywood loves a true story, especially the kind most of us have either forgotten or never heard of. “Operation Finale” fits squarely into this field considering it’s a recognizable true event.

Adolf Eichmann (Ben Kingsley), a Nazi SS Lieutenant Colonel was the logistical mastermind of the holocaust. A powerful Nazi who, unlike his colleagues (Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels), survived World War II,  escaped Germany and  fled to Austria, then Argentina. His whereabouts remained a mystery until one day in 1960, when a chance encounter between his nephew Klaus  and a German Jew . Word soon gets to the Israeli Mossad ( similar to our CIA) director who dispatches a team to Buenos Aires. Their mission is to find Eichmann and bring him back to Israel to stand trial. The group  is led by Peter Malkin (Oscar Isaac).  If they succeed, Jews the world over will experience some relief from the years of unspeakable atrocities.  It's a compelling premise, all the more so for being real.  

Why, then, don't we connect with it on screen as much as we might? The answer may lie within a simple plot point. For reasons for which the film does not elaborate, the Israeli air force refuses to fly into Argentina to extract Eichmann. This leaves El Al, the nation's commercial airliner. But El Al won't risk such a venture without a signed note from Eichmann consenting to his departure. Thus, a large portion of the film details the Mossad's efforts to convince Eichmann-perhaps gently, perhaps not-so gently to consent to such a seemingly absurd action.

It is in this waiting that the movie loses steam.  Also it is quite difficult to generate tension when we know the outcome. We know they get Eichmann to Israel for trial.

 A slow script cannot hide Kingsley's  magnetic creepy portrayal of the reclusive and manipulative Eichmann, nor Isaac's complex, restrained passion as the team’s leader.  

Operation Finale is the kind of film you see once, admire and appreciate, and probably don't see again. In fact that is reality for probably 90% of movies, even the good ones.