The Debt (2010)

Directed by: John Madden

Flipping between the mid-1960s and 1997, The Debt tells the story of the capture and killing by a Mossad team (Stefan, Rachel, David) of a Nazi war criminal, Dieter Vogel, the “Surgeon of Birkenau” – and the aftermath of that mission.

The early scenes are exciting enough (the movie shows a tendency towards outbursts of extreme  violence) but it soon becomes clear that we have not one but three unreliable narrators. 

Vogel, it emerges, was not killed – and he may be about to make a late appearance.  Two of the now-elderly Mossad agents (played by Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson) have a lot to lose if this information comes out, and so it looks like the mission may be on again…

The flitting between eras, an artifice  designed to reveal critical information to us slowly, is a bit of a problem for The Debt, but a larger one is that it can’t decide whether it is trying to be an action movie or a philosophical drama/meditation on The Truth.  What do we owe to ourselves, our families and our country, it asks – the truth, however painful, or support for what we have believed since we were young?

Viewed in this light, it’s hard to escape the idea that The Debt is questioning more general, national  foundation myths. Sadly, it does this so cack-handedly that any wider applicability of its messages is all but impossible: the implausibility of some major plot elements (such as the suicide of David), the slightly over-wrought emotions on display (contrast with the generally excellent Munich from 2005) and the constant flirting with big action scenes are just too distracting.  A strong cast can’t rescue this from being a disappointment.