Yesterday, I went to see The Debt. I was really looking forward to it, but after I saw it, I barely thought about it again. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate that the film was made – I think stories of Nazi-hunting and the early days of the Mossad are fascinating, and I wish more movies and books were out, telling those stories. But there were problems in the basic storytelling of The Debt, and in the end, the film isn’t very good.

The basic plot: The Debt tells the stories of three Mossad agents in 1967, as they are hunting “the surgeon of Birkenau” in East Germany and those same agents in 1997, as they are older and jaded. First, the cast is fantastic, and all of the actors turned in the best performances they could with a deeply flawed screenplay. Sam Worthington and Ciarán Hinds play the same character, and both were excellent, although I would have loved to see Hinds in the film more. I always think that Sam is such a meathead, but he did this quiet, dramatic role very well – his part was mostly intense looks. Tom Wilkinson and Marton Csokas play the same character – which is weird, because Tom looks nothing like Marton. Marton gives me huge Clive Owen vibes, which is to say he makes my biscuits have a party. Csokas is a sexy bitch in this film, but in the end, he’s just kind of jackass of a character.

The bulk of the story falls on Helen Mirren, and her younger version played by Jessica Chastain. Chastain does an admirable job as the completely green, in-over-her-head spy, while Helen could give depth and weight to the most asinine of line readings. The creepiest scenes in the movie involved Chastain and her work with the actor playing the Nazi, the “surgeon of Birkenau”.

As for the flaws… well, let me do this:

SPOILERS BELOW….

The failures of the plot were about the supposed “moral dilemma” of whether Nazis should be captured and put on trial or whether they should just be killed outright. There was also the “moral dilemma” of whether or not you should take credit for something that you didn’t accomplish, and take credit for it simply because no one will ever find out. The first moral dilemma is rooted in the actual history of the state of Israel – they wanted to have trials of the captured Nazis, because they wanted to show the world what had happened during the Holocaust, and because they thought war crimes trials would be the most moral and just way of handling the issue. So what’s the problem? Seeing three Israeli spies agonize over the life of a Nazi is eye-roll inducing. Is it really a moral dilemma to kill someone who murdered thousands?

As for the second moral dilemma, that of taking credit for something that no one would be able to prove otherwise – meh. That’s the part of the film that was a mess. Mirren did the best she could do, but the last twenty minutes of the film were just awful.

Oh, and my last problem with the film – the Chastain/Mirren character wouldn’t have been sent on that mission, I don’t think. She was there for a specific reason – because the mission needed a younger woman to set the trap – but I don’t buy that Mossad would have sent a woman who was so young, so emotional, and so untested on this important mission.

Photos courtesy of WENN.