Saturday, September 10, 2011

The Debt

Movie: The Debt
Genre: spy thriller
Synopsis: In 1966, Rachel (Jessica Chastain), Stephan (Marton Csokas) and David (Sam Worthington) were three Israeli Mossad agents wo were sent on a secret mission to East Germany.  Their mission was to kidnap a Nazi war criminal and bring him back to Israel for trial. The movie begins 31 years later in 1997 with Rachel (now played by Helen Mirren) is the ex-wife of Stephan (Tom Wilkenson) and David (Ciarán Hinds) has only recently re-entered the picture.  The three were celebrated as heroes for their exploits in 1966; but the return of David brings a major bump to their lives.  As we re-live the 1966 mission, we find out just how big the “bump” is.

My two cents: A pretty good spy thriller.  The plot and execution was pretty believable.  I especially liked Jessica Chastain as Rachel.  After seeing Jessica as Celia Foote in “The Help” it was interesting to see her in such a radically different role.  I would like to have seen Ciarán Hinds get more screen time.  After seeing Helen Mirren play a “wet work” specialist in REDS, it would have been nice to see her do more butt-kicking.  That said, my only real beef with this movie was the ending.  I like the endings to wrap up loose ends and – for me - this movie left too many.

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