The Debt (6/10)

December 29th, 2011

You just don’t get many Cold War thrillers these days. Thank goodness then for Tinker Tailor, Soldier Spy earlier this year, and now for The Debt which, with any luck, might bring back the great old genre. Set in both 1965 and 1997, pre- and post- Iron Curtain, it’s a solid movie that might have been better off ditching the more recent time completely.

Ex-Mossad agent now grandmother Rachel smiles and accepts the warm applause of the members of the public there to pick up a copy of her daughter’s book, a book that tells the daring raid of three Israelis smuggled into East Germany thirty years earlier in order to kidnap ex-Nazi Dieter Vogel, ‘The Surgeon of Birkenau’. The sobriquet was not awarded to him for his humanitarianism. Rachel reads a chapter from the book, one that describes how she shot the man as he fled from her clutches. She, and her two partners, are heroes.

This isn’t exactly how it happened, though, and the main body of the film centres around the actual events of 1965, where new recruit Rachel (now played by Jessica Chastain, who’s having quite the banner year) joins up with her pretend husband David (a conflicted Sam Worthington) and Marton Csokas as the team’s leader Stephan. Mossad have discovered that the mad doctor now operates as a gynaecologist in Berlin. Rachel, posing as a barren woman, visits him for a few rather uncomfortable inspections. The purpose, of course, is to get close to him in order to snatch him.

By rights, the three agents should have been all business but you know what it’s like when one pretty young girl is forced to spend a lot of time in confined spaces with two men (especially when one is posing as her husband), and sure enough emotions come into play. Nonetheless, the primary target is the Nazi prodding away at Rachel’s nethers. The full story of what exactly happened in 1965 is shown to us, and is a suspenseful ride. Director John Madden, who could do with a hit of any description, conjures the feeling of an oppressed East German state well, with subtle tints emphasising the dreariness. (‘I’m glad you came to East Berlin in the Summer; in the winter it can get a little depressing’, to misquote Euro Trip.)

Less convincing, but by no means enough to deter anybody I’d like to think, are the scenes of 1997 Israel, where the three agents reunite. Now played by Mirren, Ciarán Hinds and Rent-an-accent Tom Wilkinson, the trio have unfinished business to attend to. Mirren is the pick of these three, of course, but then you’d expect nothing less. A late trip to Ukraine gives her the chance to show off her Russian vocabulary once more (she was born Helen Mironoff, after all), but this late show disappoints. The story, so exciting and suspenseful to this point, teeters at the weight of 30 years worth of memories that burden the trio and the result is a little anti-climactic. Don’t let me put you off, though. In the barren wilderness of mainstream cinema, this is one of the better releases to have a $20m budget and might be worthy of your attention.