The Debt

A perfectly cast film with several surprising plot twists that never got boring. The plot was slow, but at the right moments there was always a livelier scene, and watching the performances of everyone involved, especially Jessica Chastain and Helen Mirren, was a pleasure. The passage with the imprisoned Nazi, which was very chilling, and the good ending deserve your attention. (01/16/2013)

If this movie had been made a few years later, Jessica Chastain would have visited Prague sooner than she managed to with the movie Zookeeper’s Wife. I’m sure of that. You see you can feel Prague’s good old architecture from this film, which is also quite similar in Budapest. That’s why they use Budapest to shoot East Berlin every now and then. Nevertheless, I watched this movie mainly because of Jessica, who once again put in an incredible acting performance. It was a bit worse with the story that tries to look very interesting, spy-like and fateful, but it’s actually about one botched operation and the related lie. Nothing too big, nothing too complicated. The atmosphere is definitely good, but you sort of suspect all the time how things will eventually turn out and you have no reason to yearn for the ending from the very start, which is a pity for a movie like this. (04/17/2017)

Half of the film is a fascinating trip to the heart of darkness and half is the mechanical sweeping of the dry mud of history under a neat genre carpet. There’s something to Matty's interpretation; perhaps I would just add that the chemistry of the Mossad and Vogel agents is extremely functional and has spark. Unfortunately, only as long as they're all young. In 1997, all that remains of all this magic is a persistent and schematic thriller with an inadvertently comic ending that blocks out the beautiful vibration of East Berlin. In any case, madden killed Vogel through the scenes of "gynecological" interrogation and abduction that were over the line, not only by his standards, but also by genre standards. I've never seen more luxurious old school... well, since Munich. [70%] (10/28/2011)

I really enjoyed this one. A great film set in the world of Mossad, which immediately reminded me of Spielberg's Munich. It lags behind Munich a bit, but it's still a perfect film. John Madden has years of experience under his belt and knows how to handle things, and the result is well worth it. The casting was flawless, with Helen Mirren being her usual brilliant self, but I was probably most surprised by Jesper Christensen's performance as the "Butcher of Birkenau," as he played it very convincingly and believably. In roles like these, it really shows whether an actor has true talent. The atmosphere was excellent, especially the transition from East Germany to its western counterpart, which was chilling, and the buildup was executed to perfection. I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t get more action scenes, but it’s true that the film wasn’t really about that. The scenes set in the present day felt mostly duller compared to those from the 60s, but the ending in Ukraine wrapped it up quite well. There aren’t many films about hunting down German war criminals, which is why The Debt is among the best you can get in this category. I give it 79%. (06/23/2017)

As I've grown older, my perspective on movies and series I watched years ago has certainly shifted, and this film is a prime example. At one point, chasing Nazis might have seemed justified, but seeing the recent outcomes of such actions feels like kicking someone who's already unconscious. I'm not here to defend anyone, but dragging elderly folks in near-vegetative states to court, with more tubes and wires than Robocop, doesn't seem to have a point. What kind of punishment will they get? Life imprisonment? Right. The blindfolded lady with scales must be having a good laugh. Anyway, this film captured a time when such actions seemed more sensible, and I particularly enjoyed the part set in Berlin. However, the part set in the present and the ending was executed so poorly that I debated whether it deserved that third star for quite some time. / Lesson learned: While we played cops and robbers as children, kids in Israel apparently played games like Simon and the Nazis.3*- (06/22/2022)