THE DEBT
4 out of 5 stars

an interesting movie about mossad agents in the 1960s on a mission to retrieve a nazi doctor living in hiding. they’re hailed as national heros by the israeli govt, but are they? focus features delivers another great film about the truth vs. the “truth”. ;)

the year is 1966, and rachel singer (jessica chastain), david peretz (sam worthington), and stephan gold (marton csokas) come back home to israel receiving high honors after completing their mission from eastern germany. their mission: to capture and retrieve a former nazi doctor named dieter vogel AKA the surgeon of birkanau, a ruthless nazi officer who performed awful inhumane experiments during the holocaust. they were to bring him back to israel, so he could stand trial for his crimes... the movie actually begins in 1997, where rachel’s daughter sarah has written a book on her mother rachel (helen mirren) and father stephan (tom wilkinson)’s infamous mission, and rachel even reads an excerpt from the book at a celebratory dinner. as it turns out, rachel and the prisoner fought, the prisoner escaped, and rachel reached for the gun and shot the bastard as he was running away... but the looks exchanged between rachel and stephan at dinner prove otherwise? so, what really happened that night? i don’t want to give away the whole plot, but let’s just say that a love triangle + failed mission + a psychologically diabolical prisoner = THRILLER. ;)

the premise of this movie was really good, but for some odd reason, i felt like something was missing... maybe it was b/c of sam worthington’s lack of acting, but i felt like the characters needed some more substance? i.e. what made them join mossad? what made them accept this mission besides the obvious? i thought the ending was BRILLIANT, and thought the storyline was pretty well developed... the color filtering is done really well, and you feel like it's really 1966 east berlin.  it’s definitely a great spy thriller with lots of suspenseful moments esp. the train station vogel extraction scene! this one really gets your heart racing and your brain wondering what’ll happen next. james bond fans will hate, but realists will love... ;)