THE DEBT Review
[Our thanks to Simon Kingsley for the following review.]
There are some actors who are so good they're worth the ticket price alone. Michael Caine is one of them, Helen Mirren is another. I go for anything she appears in, safe in the knowledge that no matter how cruddy everything and everyone else might be, this talented and sexy actress (I've seen her at a press conference and she is hot!) is always worth the attention.
So since The Debt stars Helen Mirren I was going to love it regardless, and I'm really happy to say the rest of the film is up to snuff as well. It's been a long time since I've seen such a well acted and directed (by John Madden) thriller and even infidel non-Mirrenites are going to be awed at her performance here. This time she gets to do some very down and dirty hand-to-hand stuff too. *Sigh*.
Flitting between present day Israel and 1960s East Berlin (Budapest filling in very nicely unless you happen to know East Berlin) this is a remake of the 2007 Israeli film of the same title (Haven't seen it, can't compare, but one woman at the screening had and trashed it).
Mirren plays Rachel Singer (her younger self played by Jessica Chastain), part of a Mossad unit tasked with kidnapping and bringing back a former Nazi war criminal (the clinically evil, but not in a comic book kind of way, Jesper Christensen) for trial. The other members of the team are Ciáran Hinds (young self by Sam Worthington) and Tom Wilkinson (young self by Marton Csokas). Things, as is so often the case, do not go according to plan.
The script by Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman and Peter Straughan also takes in such adult themes as settling scores, what it means to live with a lie, how inevitably the past does catch up with us and that loose ends, personal and professional, have to be tackled, sooner or, in this case, very much later. This is one very rich and satisfying layered cake but even if you stick with just the basic thriller premise, you won't go home hungry.
The Debt shows what can happen when all a film's major elements come together and work to produce something greater than the sum of its individual parts. I sat there wondering how I could improve this film and decided short of all the gross income going to my bank account there wasn't anything I would touch.
Some of the absolutely stand out scenes include Jessica Chastain visiting Jesper Christensen's Nazi doctor, the Doctor of Birkenau, turned gynaecologist (believe me, men and women are going to clench with tension here); the Israelis' failed attempt to smuggle their prisoner out of the country; the increasingly tense sexual dynamics between the unit members; what it means to be holed up in a hostile country in a run down apartment with a very manipulative mass murderer chained to the radiator; the... I could go on and on. Suffice to say, the quality of the 'present day' scenes in Israeli and later Ukraine mirror those set in the past. If you think Helen Mirren can't fight... You're so very wrong! After her turn with a heavy machine gun in Retired Extremely Dangerous she now shows her abilities in the Israeli martial art of Krav Maga. Again, these scenes are shot for realism, not show. The moral? Don't mess with the Mirren!
The film not only has a top-lining Helen Mirren at her best, but features uniformly excellent performances from all concerned. And in what has to be a shock!-horror!, Sam Worthington, whom I'd previously filed under '-Talented, Un' (I mean, it's not like Avatar counts and we've all seen Clash of the Titans right?) shows he really can act!
For those of you who love your films character-driven as opposed to effect-loaded, The Debt is stand out entertainment that feeds the brain as well.
Review by Simon Kingsley
There are some actors who are so good they're worth the ticket price alone. Michael Caine is one of them, Helen Mirren is another. I go for anything she appears in, safe in the knowledge that no matter how cruddy everything and everyone else might be, this talented and sexy actress (I've seen her at a press conference and she is hot!) is always worth the attention.
So since The Debt stars Helen Mirren I was going to love it regardless, and I'm really happy to say the rest of the film is up to snuff as well. It's been a long time since I've seen such a well acted and directed (by John Madden) thriller and even infidel non-Mirrenites are going to be awed at her performance here. This time she gets to do some very down and dirty hand-to-hand stuff too. *Sigh*.
Flitting between present day Israel and 1960s East Berlin (Budapest filling in very nicely unless you happen to know East Berlin) this is a remake of the 2007 Israeli film of the same title (Haven't seen it, can't compare, but one woman at the screening had and trashed it).
Mirren plays Rachel Singer (her younger self played by Jessica Chastain), part of a Mossad unit tasked with kidnapping and bringing back a former Nazi war criminal (the clinically evil, but not in a comic book kind of way, Jesper Christensen) for trial. The other members of the team are Ciáran Hinds (young self by Sam Worthington) and Tom Wilkinson (young self by Marton Csokas). Things, as is so often the case, do not go according to plan.
The script by Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman and Peter Straughan also takes in such adult themes as settling scores, what it means to live with a lie, how inevitably the past does catch up with us and that loose ends, personal and professional, have to be tackled, sooner or, in this case, very much later. This is one very rich and satisfying layered cake but even if you stick with just the basic thriller premise, you won't go home hungry.
The Debt shows what can happen when all a film's major elements come together and work to produce something greater than the sum of its individual parts. I sat there wondering how I could improve this film and decided short of all the gross income going to my bank account there wasn't anything I would touch.
Some of the absolutely stand out scenes include Jessica Chastain visiting Jesper Christensen's Nazi doctor, the Doctor of Birkenau, turned gynaecologist (believe me, men and women are going to clench with tension here); the Israelis' failed attempt to smuggle their prisoner out of the country; the increasingly tense sexual dynamics between the unit members; what it means to be holed up in a hostile country in a run down apartment with a very manipulative mass murderer chained to the radiator; the... I could go on and on. Suffice to say, the quality of the 'present day' scenes in Israeli and later Ukraine mirror those set in the past. If you think Helen Mirren can't fight... You're so very wrong! After her turn with a heavy machine gun in Retired Extremely Dangerous she now shows her abilities in the Israeli martial art of Krav Maga. Again, these scenes are shot for realism, not show. The moral? Don't mess with the Mirren!
The film not only has a top-lining Helen Mirren at her best, but features uniformly excellent performances from all concerned. And in what has to be a shock!-horror!, Sam Worthington, whom I'd previously filed under '-Talented, Un' (I mean, it's not like Avatar counts and we've all seen Clash of the Titans right?) shows he really can act!
For those of you who love your films character-driven as opposed to effect-loaded, The Debt is stand out entertainment that feeds the brain as well.
Review by Simon Kingsley
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