The Debt

Running time: 113 minutes

Genre: Drama/Thriller

Release date: September 30^th 2011

Star rating: 3/5

Director: John Madden

Writers: Jane Goldman, Peter Straughan, Matthew Vaughn

Cast: Helen Mirren, Sam Worthington, Jessica Chastain, Ciaran Hinds, Tom Wilkinson, Marton Csokas.

Where time-line hopping espionage thrillers are concerned there is always the fear that the transitions between time periods will lead to a disjointed structure and a plot that is hard to follow. However, with The Debt director John Madden certainly delivers – for the first two acts at least- in making the leap between 1965 and 1997 seem effortless and maintaining the fast pace and high tension that is required for a high wire thriller such as The Debt.

The majority of the film takes place in the desolate post war city of East Berlin where Mossad agent Rachel Singer (Chastain) meets fellow agents David Perez (Worthington) and Stefan Gold (Csokas). Their mission is to capture the Nazi war criminal Deter Vogel – infamously named The Surgeon of Brikenau for his horrific pseudo-medical experiments on Jews during the Second World War. Rachel and David pose as an ethnic German married couple from Argentina – which later develops into real attraction that has fatal consequences – allowing Rachel to plant herself as a patient in Vogel’s obstetrics and gynaecology clinic. During one examination Rachel attacks Vogel and the trio kidnap him in an attempt to bring him back to Israel to face justice.

This is intercut with events during 1997 where, with the agents now venerated as national heroes, Rachel is attending a release party for her daughter Sarah’s book which chronicles the events of the 1965 mission. Here, she is reunited with Stefan and David and together they must deal with the consequences of their mission and the dark secret that torments them all.

With so much ground to cover over such an expansive time-frame, Madden is well served by actors capable of holding focus and carrying the characters through the years. Helen Mirren is on typically magnificent form playing the 1997 version of Rachel with the intensity of a woman still carrying both the physical and emotional scars of the events of 1965. Her 1965 counter-part Jessica Chastain is almost as brilliant bringing a nervous timidness to a younger naive Rachel on her first mission.

Unfortunately, the male characters do not receive the same treatment. Both David and Stefan are woefully underwritten and often underplayed so much so that I found myself asking which of the two men I was seeing when younger.

Whilst the first two acts are packed with tension and suspense –aided by an ear-piercing soundtrack where even the dripping of water can cut through you like a knife – the final act fails to live up to this early potential. By the final 20 minutes the film has rather lost momentum with its intensity and suspense going along with it, so much so the film has to drag its self over the finish line. Fortunately, such is the brilliance of Mirren’s acting ability, the pure emotion of her performance is able to keep you invested enough to carry you through to the very end.

The Debt is a sharp, intense espionage thriller that is carried by a superb performance by Helen Mirren but ultimately fails to live up to its early potential.