- Directed by: John Madden.
- Written by: Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman, and Peter Straughan. Based on The Debt (2007).
- Starring: Jessica Chastain, Sam Worthington, Marton Csokas, Helen Mirren, Jesper Christensen, Tom Wilkinson, Romi Aboulafia, Ciarán Hinds.
- Rated: R.
The most effective scene in The Debt appears twice in the movie. Set to New Year’s Eve fireworks, a Mossad agent senses a disturbance with her prisoner. A chase ensues, and she shoots him with a pistol from a long distance. This scene is repeated later in the film, but there’s a twist. Pity this is the film’s only twist.
The Debt concerns three Mossad agents hunting a Nazi war criminal, Dieter Vogel (Jesper Christensen), the infamous Surgeon of Birkenau. The operation is headed by Stefan (Marton Csokas) and the team includes the enigmatic David (Sam Worthington) and rookie field agent Rachel (Jessica Chastain). The trio, as all fictional trios involving one female and two males must, becomes a love triangle. David is left dejected as Stefan and Rachel form a relationship, though Rachel has stronger affections for David. The trio hunts down Vogel who’s posing as a doctor in East Berlin. But their plan is too good to be true, and soon it falls apart. They’re left to fend for themselves with Vogel as hostage. A sense of claustrophobia pervades this sequence, heightened by the agents’ intense hatred of Vogel – their families were slaughtered in the Holocaust.
This story is intercut with a strand from the present, in which Rachel and Stefan are divorced and David is a recluse. Rachel and Stefan’s daughter (Romi Aboulafia) has written an account of their escapades. Here the squad is played by Helen Mirren (as Rachel), Tom Wilkinson (as Stefan), and Ciarán Hinds (as David). These older actors are more pedigreed and refined than their younger counterparts, but the younger actors have more to do. Indeed, Ciarán Hinds has only one initial scene and two or three blink-and-you-miss-it flashbacks.
This initial scene is a remarkable use of perspective and camera work. We follow Hinds and a background Mossad agent through the streets of Israel while the titles float past us. Director John Madden uses a continuous shot behind Hinds, and he sets the stage for wonderful action shots throughout the film. There’s no quickly cut artificial adrenaline here – scenes are deliberate, depending on its characters and fight choreography to quicken our pulses. Madden’s most well-known film, Shakespeare in Love, also features an all-star British cast with historical ties – but the two films couldn’t be more different.
This cast is great, but the film can’t live up to their names. The “big twist” is the film’s only twist. The Debt isn’t trying to be escapist or particularly deep – Madden makes his one theme quite transparent. The film aims to be a twisty, cerebral thriller but ends up too simple and flat to work. Better films like State of Play or Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy keep you guessing until the last minute, cycling through an endless infinite of characters and possibilities. Any spy movie worth its salt chiefly features paranoia, but there is no gray area here. The Debt spells out its ending in its first five minutes. What’s more, this finale just isn’t exciting, gathering all the tension built up from the flashback storyline and scattering it with a ridiculous “action” sequence.
As for the cast, Jessica Chastain manages to convincingly emulate Helen Mirren physically, and she provides the movie’s key performance. Marton Csokas and Sam Worthington may be underwritten, but they each have a few quietly powerful scenes. Jesper Christensen makes for a colorful villain, restrained but vicious. But Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson are given mere minutes to shape performances and thus less effective. In another film, I would’ve taken away entire scenes and monologues. In The Debt, I’ll remember one or two of Mirren’s facial expressions, a grave close-up of Wilkinson. In some films, this wouldn’t be the point. Names like ‘Mirren’ and ‘Wilkinson’ would take the backseat to explosives and rambunctious chases. The problem is, The Debt doesn’t seem to have much of a point. ☆☆
The difference is in the cast. Meryl Streep is Jane, who runs her own bakery (of course), has a spacious house overlooking a beautiful nature scene (of course), and feels the need to further upgrade her house and kitchen so it will actually be her dream kitchen (of course). She’s been divorced for ten years, but is just starting to find a new normal. She even has a potential love interest, her also recently-divorced architect, Adam (Steve Martin). Then Jane’s ex, Jake (Alec Baldwin) reenters her life. He’s married an attractive nag (Lake Bell) and eagerly starts an affair. Jane isn’t so sure, but after consulting with her psychiatrist (Peter Mackenzie) she decides to ruin her ex’s wife’s life.
Traffic explores the drug trade from multiple perspectives: a pair of DEA agents in America (Don Cheadle and Luis Guzmán), a pair of cops in Mexico police force (Benicio del Toro and Jacob Vargas), an upper-crust woman (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who’s forced to take over the family business when her husband (Steven Bauer) goes to jail, a pair of drug-addled teens (Erika Christensen and Topher Grace), and the girl’s parents (Michael Douglas and Amy Irving). Douglas, to complicate things, is the U.S. President’s new drug czar.
The Tyrell Corporation makes - or made, as they’re illegal - replicants, or machines built to mimic life in every way. They were used as a new kind of slavery, because, of course, they’re not technically alive - but as the movie shows, they live and think for themselves. Does that not make them human? The movie lets you decide that for yourself, and therein lies its power. The point is, very few in the film openly think replicants human. They are, after all, illegal, after a colony proved they were too free-thinking and murdered their owners.
When Harry Met Sally… finds the cynical and self-assured Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) on a road trip to New York with the opinionated Sally Albright (Meg Ryan). Harry wants to find a job and Sally’s off to journalism school. A great movie could have been made if this journey was the film’s entire narrative, but writer Nora Ephron goes a different, more realistic route. Harry tells Sally that they cannot possibly be friends because men and women can never be “just friends”, and the two go their separate ways. Director Rob Reiner gives you goosebumps in this scene: it’s understated and subtle, but still powerful.
