Sep 06, 2011

By Audrey Hendricks

 

What would you do if you could avenge/capture someone who did horrible things to your ancestors?

 

Personally, I would make them wish they were never born.  That’s the mentality of the Mossad agents in The Debt.

 

Rachel (Helen Mirren/Jessica Chastain), Stefan (Tom Wilkinson/Marton Csokas), and David (Ciaran Hinds/Sam Worthington) are Mossad agents set on a mission to track down and capture a Nazi concentration camp doctor Dieter Vogel aka Doktor Bernhardt (Jesper Christensen) and return him to Israel to stand trial for his war crimes.  Their mission was initiated in 1966 East Berlin, and now in 1997, thirty years later, they reunite… Not on social terms, but to finish what was started.

 

That’s all I can really say without giving things away.

 

Director John Madden (Proof, Shakespeare in Love) returns from a two year directing absence to direct this espionage-love triangle-dramatic thriller.  His vision to recreate the 1960’s East Berlin era and the portrayal of the hatred that these agents have toward this doctor while trying to remain calm is something I haven’t seen in a long while.

 

For the first hour (113 minute film), I was a little confused because with the fast pace of the story, combined with all the jumping from past to present. But towards the end, everything fell into place.

 

 Unlike Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark and Transformers 3, I wasn’t bored with this movie.  I started to get into the story, seeing myself wanting to be there with them helping them capture this man who did horrible things to innocent people.  That’s exactly what I look for in a movie – the desire to be in the character’s shoes…  The thought of “if I was there, I would have done X and Y differently.”

 

The Debt is well worth seeing in the theaters.  It’s not 3D, 4D, or any other kind of “D” Hollywood and advanced technology has to offer now a days. It doesn’t need it.