The Debt

 John Madden, director of the multi award-winning movie "Shakespeare in Love," presents us this time with "The Debt", a film with the premise of being a solid thriller with historical references and a good squad of actors, which has translated into good box office results.

Really "The Debt" is much more than what it seems at first sight: at its best moments, the film works as a solvent story based on a criminal plot in which three Mossad agents are trying to capture the so-called "Surgeon of Birkenau", a doctor who collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War and that now (in the 60’s when most of the story is set) works as a gynecologist in the German capital.

The three Israelis builds up what in the future, specifically in 1997, will become a personal and historical debt, when the agents turn sixty years old and the daughter of one of them has written a book about what happened. With a time shifting narrative structure, the film aims at being a combination of political conspiracy and drama, leaving the audience wandering over the little big lies left for posterity in the history books.

Madden uses his magic in the middle of the film, when "The Debt" is immersed in a particular atmosphere and a lot of tension, a very distinguished thriller that progresses slowly and that manages somehow to position itself close to very well-known titles like "Munich", by Spielberg, and more commercial movies like Mission Impossible, starring Tom Cruise.

The critic against the classic 'war hero' that Madden states here is quite clever and the historical recreation works so well that the personal story concerning the characters of Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson is totally out of place, despite a great performance given by this actors. Madden might have made a mistake by  telling a really long story about the past and then taking it to the present: this structure is necessary to justify the idea and the name of ​​"The Debt", but it fails in some scenes like the last one where I felt that bringing the closure to the presents was not very effective.

Overall, "The Debt" is an entertaining film, whose ending  could have clearly been better, and that will be remembered also for the curious combination between some of the old school best actors (Mirren, Wilkinson) and two of the new most promising names in Hollywood (Worthington, Chastain).

Director: John Madden

Writers: Matthew Vaughn (screenplay), Jane Goldman (screenplay)

Stars: Helen Mirren, Sam Worthington and Tom Wilkinson