The Debt

Steve Newall, Flicks.co.nz

Flicks Writer

With the deaths this year of Bin Laden and Gaddafi, The Debt’s examination of how a narrative forms around the murky truths of assassination and espionage is timely. When that narrative is part of the developmental process of a nation, as the Mossad’s plan to hunt down Nazi war criminals was for Israel, it can take on a life of its own, whether true or not. This creates the sense of guilt that drives the events of The Debt.

Set in both the 1960s and 1990s, the film tells the story of an Israeli operation to bring a war criminal to justice and the effect liberties with the truth threaten to have 30 years later. Helen Mirren’s character has managed to live with this until pushed to confront it and her subsequent investigations and arguments with a former colleague (Tom Wilkinson) are intercut with the mission itself. With this star power it comes as a surprise that The Debt’s strongest moments stem from scenes with younger versions of these characters; Jessica Chastain (Tree Of Life) proving a compelling screen presence and our own Martin Csokas a magnificent creep.

But for all this acting power on display (and a script co-written by Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn and Peter Straughan), The Debt comes off as less than the sum of its parts. Perhaps that’s because the film is so performance-focused that the broader ramifications of its characters’ actions aren’t immediately obvious, but it doesn’t manage to sustain the sort of tension the subject matter deserves nor provide a satisfactory resolution.

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