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Dir. by John Madden
The spy thriller is a fairly tried and true genre, giving modern filmmakers a tougher time to come up with something new to do with it. Adding the Cold War and modern era together along with a complicated romantic relationship AND Nazi-hunting Mossad agents The Debt tries quite hard for a sexy new spin on it all. Does it succeed? Well, sorta...(yes, that is a cop-out to get you to read the rest of this review).
The film's story basically starts with the introduction of a book about a famous Israeli mission to bring a horrible Nazi to justice in 1966. The book's author just happens to be the daughter of two of the three agents who participated in that story: Her mother Rachel (Helen Mirren), her father Stephan (Tom Wilkinson). The third agent,David (Ciaran Hinds), is clearly the most troubled after the whole incident while Rachel and Stephan are now divorced, she living as a lecture-touring symbol of Israeli justice and Stephan high in the ranks of Mossad. After some brief setup it's clear that not everything is going well suddenly for the trio and, to set it up properly, the film moves the action back to 1966, in Berlin for this famous mission.
Young Rachel (Jessica Chastain) is on her first assignment in the field while veteran operatives young Stephan (Marton Csokas) and young David (Sam Worthington) are busy setting up the operation. Their target is the infamous “butcher of Birkenau,†one Dieter Vogel (Jesper Christensen). He's currently living in Berlin and working as a gynecologist. So Rachel and David pose as a young couple trying to have a baby, giving her a chance to get in close on the good doctor to confirm his identity. Once that's done they manage to abuct him quickly and have plans to put him on a train out of Berlin and get Vogel to Israel where he can stand trial. But the plan doesn't work out and they're left holding their hostage in their apartment in Berlin, on their own, marked by the authorities and lacking any outside help.
As they're stranded in this place their situation begins to develop into something more between them all. Since there are three of them it's safe to assume that they each take on the role of The Mind, with righteous David as the superego, ambitious Stephan as the id and the all-too-human Rachel as the moderating ego. She clearly has to carry the biggest load here, as she at first has to allow this evil man to probe around inside her lady parts then, later, as she continues to do the dishes and clean up the apartment. Her spy skills notwithstanding the 2 others begin to turn to her romantically (David) and sexually (Stephan) as well, subjugating her yet again. The film stops just shy of really making something more out of this with the exception being that she's the only team member who leaves the mission with a hideous visible scar. I don't think subtlety is Madden's strongsuit.
How the mission plays out and what they have to do in order to return home as heroes plays out in good spy-movie fashion. Where the film comes off the tracks a bit is the final half hour when they turn the spy thriller into a mystery-action piece, attempting to put a nice bow onto it all in the modern day and give all the characters a second chance. It's shoehorned in and shows clumsily which is a shame as the script here was written by Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman who have done much better with keeping these kinds of thematic elements in check.
The debt of the film's title, then, relates to this final part fo the story and - as it's is pretty muddy - so, too, is the meaning of the title as it's very unclear to whom the debt is owed at all (while they nail the cost of the debt and who's paying it quite clearly). It's unfortunately uneven in this way and that drags the overall film down which is a shame because, at its core, it's a very competent spy thriller.
Extras, Audio, Video
Extras on this Universal BD are incredibly sparse, containing just three very short marketing-type segments, focusing on the film itself, on Helen Mirren and on the “love triangle†story angle. The commentary track from director Madden and producer Kris Thykier is rather boring as it's mostly Madden describing the setup of shots and scenes and trying to wake his producer on occasion.
The available English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 track is incredibly efficient, servicing the dramatically scored action scenes as well as the whispered, secret conversations between the main actors. The image is also quite nice here, presented in widescreen 2.40:1 at 1080p, giving nice grit to the Cold War era Berlin and beautiful sun-saturation to modern Israel locations.
The only other notable “extra†is more a function of the BD Live use on the disc, giving me the opportunity to try out the pocket Blu app on my iPhone. It actually works more cleanly and responsive than my player's remote control and the time-tracking ability (by tilting my phone on its side) is a nice feature. From this app I could even stream the above-mentioned extras and view them on the phone if I'd wanted. It's a pretty slick addition.
Summary
At the core of The Debt is a story of honor and honesty and what the cost of fighting the good fight really is. It's a common theme in Nazi-hunter type films and while they try to play up the love triangle connection here as a new spin on it it's ultimately a film without clear direction. It works best when it focuses on the spy thriller and less on the mystery that seems crammed on in order to make a better moralistic value judgement of the characters and their actions. Entertaining but uneven it's still watchable for the main storyline and the performances of Mirren and Chastain.
Rating: C
