The Debt

The Debt

Director: John Madden
Stars: Helen Mirren, Jessica Chastain, Tom Wilkinson, Marton Csokas, Ciaran Hinds and Sam Worthington

Right off the bat I had trouble with the casting choice of the men; not the actors but who they were playing.  In this movie you had a 30-year old version of a character and a 60-year old version.  The older men should have been switched (the younger men were just right for their roles) based both on looks and acting capabilities.  This bugged me the whole time but I don’t think it colored my opinion of the movie.  My mother, who I see all my spy movies with, had the EXACT same problem but I do think it affected her opinion of the movie. Maybe it’s just us.  We’re weird and definitely cut from the same cloth.

The Debt is a story of three Mossad agents on a Nazi-hunting mission in East Berlin.  The mission goes a bit awry and well, things happen.  As mentioned, we see the characters at the time of their mission and 30 or so years later as they’re still living with the events of that mission. 

The movie was very well done.  The directing was as good as it should have been from Oscar winning director, John Madden. The pace was (mostly) good, the story was interesting, and blah, blah, blah.

The acting was quite good and it would have been truly shocking if this specific cast had delivered bad performances. Surprisingly, the breakout star of this was Jessica Chastain and that’s no small accomplishment when you’re playing the younger version of a power-house like Helen Mirren.  Don't get me wrong, Mirren was great, but Chastain is on a streak.  She’s come a long way since her 1 episode of Veronica Mars. As far as the male actors in the movie, the younger guys had a bit more meat to deal with but the older guys were good too.

So, as expected, this was an overall solid movie.  HOWEVER...My biggest issue had to do with the ending so I won’t go into it too much because I don't like to spoil things for people.  I will try to describe it so as not to give anything away.  Quite often in life (and in movies) people are faced with a decision in order to release the guilt with which they are living.  Mostly we would say to that person, “Tell the truth! Do the right thing!”  But there are times when truth-telling only serves to relieve one person's guilt while at the same time would RUIN other people’s lives.  Other people who were totally innocent and didn’t asked to have their lives ruined.  This was especially true for The Debt.  It did start a good conversation between me and my mom so actually it cancels out the fact that I think the person made the wrong decision. 

Poor Tracy will probably never get this in Fort Wherever, Co. (I’m just kidding! I know where she lives. Mostly.)