Movies

A showcase of nuanced performances, The Debt is an intriguing, tense thriller that explores the value of truth and the consequences of its manipulation.

The narrative moves between two times: Tel Aviv in 1997 and East Berlin during Cold War 1965. In 1997, three retired Mossad agents, Rachel (Helen Mirren), Stefan (Tom Wilkinson) and David (Ciaran Hinds) have been lauded for capturing Nazi war criminal Dieter Vogel, nicknamed 'the Surgeon of Birkenau' 30 years earlier (Jesper Christensen). However, the flashes of unease that cross Rachel's face at a book launch about these heroic exploits indicate that a great duplicity has occurred.

Flash back to 1965, fresh-faced, first-time-in-the-field Rachel (a luminous Jessica Chastain) poses as the infertile wife to David (Sam Worthington), in an intimate cat-and-mouse game with Vogel, now a gynaecologist. Stefan (Marton Csokas) assumes leadership of the trio, whose task to entrap Vogel and transport him to Israel for trial, is undertaken in a void with no hi-tech gadgets and little assistance from Mossad.

The three agents suffer in this claustrophobic relationship fraught with danger. As careful planning gives way to disaster and conflict, the trio carry out an exercise in suppression; of fear, of desire, of the truth. This simmering pot bubbles over with dramatic consequences.

The Debt is most successful in its quiet moments, from the heart-stopping tension between Rachel and Vogel as she sits in stirrups, to the wall-clawing oppression that suffocates the agents in their dank apartment.

Although the advertising will have you believe The Debt is all about Helen Mirren, this is Chastain's movie, and she delivers a mesmerising performance. Although Mirren is excellent, her scenes are weighed down with exposition, and the tension that was ratcheted so high in the flashbacks can never be recaptured in the present.

The Debt never loses sight of its action-thriller status and is always in motion, sometimes at the cost of subtlety, but nonetheless, it's a really fine, satisfying journey.