The Debt (2010)

"The Debt" is a good thriller ... if you're patient enough to wait for the halfway twist. Until then we have a story partly told in flashback of three Mossad agents tasked somewhere in the 60's with capturing the "surgeon of Birkenau" a Nazi war criminal hiding somewhere in the East Berlin. It's partly in flashback because the story actually starts 30 years after the events at the launch of a book covering the mission success. Inexplicably, one of the three commits suicide just before the book release festivity. Well, inexplicably until halfway in the movie :) ...

I would say something about the actors. More precisely about the casting. I can appreciate hiring a pair of actors for each of the three agents, as what I think it is a better alternative to an aging makeup that often fails, but the way the pairs were chosen is at least strange if not really confusing. You're initially tempted to associate the younger version of an agent to the other one and vice versa. Getting over this, I can't say the movie is exceptional in any aspect. The story, however, is quite well put together, it has that nostalgic/romantic part characteristic to the classic spy thriller genre that's nowadays sort of lost (we didn't have that in Bourne for instance), and the directing (John Madden) stands solid in the British tradition of this kind of movie. I would say that the result, especially considering the slow development, gets close to John le Carre ("Tailor of Panama", "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", "A Most Wanted Man") .. maybe even better sometimes.

Rating: 3 out of 5