Damning with Faint Praise: THE DEBT

In 1965, a team of Mossad agents infiltrate East Berlin in search of a Nazi war criminal.

In 1995, they deal with the consequences of that mission.

Disconnected

I want to start by saying this is the best thing that Sam Worthington has ever done, and I liked Bootmen. This is a terrific example of what happens when you put a young actor to work in a cast that forces him to up his game. I completely bought the relationship in 1965 between his character, David, and Jessica Chastain’s character, Rachel. Director John Madden did a great job with his young cast.

If you think Mr. Worthington is just the latest Rip Slabchest (thanks to Clash of the Titans and Terminator Salvation), you should see this to get a better opinion.

Okay. I had time to sharpen my knives while I said sincere, nice, things. Now let’s carve some meat.

I watched a lot of Nazi-hunting movies when I was younger, including The Odessa Files and The Boys from Brazil. I can remember when the discovery of Martin Bormann’s body was announced.

However, that was thirty years ago. Since then, we’ve watched Indiana Jones make the Nazis look like goose-stepping fools, and mowed down our fair share in games like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor.

The Debt does a terrific job of making the 1965 Mossad mission tense and suspenseful, but it gives us very little context. Why was it so important for Mossad agents to locate a former Nazi in East Berlin? This movie will not tell you.

If you are too young to remember the Cold War (and Crazy Uncle Rich knows that many of you are), you may not realize why the Mossad had to infiltrate East Berlin, or even that there used to be an East Berlin. This movie is not going to give you any easy information.

Why does any of this matter? The movie does not establish that.

Unfortunately, the structure of the film brings that failure into glaring relief. In 1995, Rachel (now played by Helen Mirren) has a daughter who just wrote a book about her mother’s daring mission. David (now played by Ciaran Hinds) reappears after years of a private mission. He has shocking news: Their target from 1965 is still alive, and threatening to tell the world of his Nazi identity and thus their failure.

And we still don’t care.

I understand why it should matter. In 1965, Rachel was a rarity. Her team’s “success” was proof that female Mossad agents could serve in the field with honor and distinction. I also understand that her daughter’s book built Rachel up to be a hero, and David’s information means coming clean and embarrassing everyone.

I have to infer all of that, though, and the movie needs to be more clear about motivations. Why didn’t Rachel tell her daughter the truth as soon as she started talking about writing the book? It’s not enough to say that they lived with the lie for so long it didn’t occur to her. Bullshit. Books, especially properly researched historical non-fiction, take a long time to write. There were plenty of opportunities to come clean.

I also had a problem with the character of Stephan (Martin Csokas in the 1965 scenes, and Tom Wilkinson in the 1995 scenes). I don’t know if it was the acting, the directing, or the writing, but I never understood why he was so dead set on covering up the team’s mistake from 1965, or why he felt he had so much to lose in 1995.

Because the movie hasn’t done enough to build the importance of the 1965 mission, and because it did not adequately show the consequences in 1995, the whole experience feels flat.

John Madden directed Mrs Brown, Shakespeare in Love, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. His cast in The Debt included Helen Mirren, Ciaran Hinds, Tom Wilkinson, Sam Worthington, and Jessica Chastain. Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman wrote this between Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class. Peter Straughan worked on it right after The Men Who Stare at Goats. You expect a big emotional punch from a movie with those credentials, and The Debt just fails to deliver.

Maybe I should see the original movie, Ha-Hov.