thislittlepiggie
The worst casting ever! The young verses the old ....horrible....back and forth, such a disappointing movie.
Reno Rangan
I'm glad that I finally saw it. All these years something stopped me from watching it, but not this time. So I forget what this film was about and went for it thinking it was about money related theme as the title hints. That's a surprise, because it was a spy film and a good one too. I almost loved the whole film, but a few parts were not up to the expectations including the conclusion. I mean I liked that, but according to the climate in the story I anticipated a good ending, even it was cliché I would have not cared.It is the remake of an Israeli film of the same name and obviously slight changes were made in this version. There are two sets of the same characters, because the story takes place in the two different timelines. Hence the young ones and the old ones of the same roles were played by the different actors. They all were amazing, particularly Jessica Chastain led from the front and finished it off quite neatly by Helen Mirren. At one point I thought it was a martial art film, but that part was just a build up like any spy theme.The story holds the suspense, like it does not let us know what they were doing. And when you come to know their intention, the new angle of suspense arises. Like theirs plan to accomplish the mission. Besides the love triangle pours more anticipation towards the conclusion. Apart from the actors, the writing was the most impressive job, to tell the tale very successfully. If it could have not shied away of the clichés, it would have been a masterpiece. Still a very good film and definitely worth a watch.7/10
dierregi
I usually like tense spy thrillers, but I was seriously disappointed by this one. The "real" action takes place in 1965, when three Mossad agents work in East Berlin to apprehend a Nazi criminal.Contrary to Mossad's reputation, these are the worst agents, ever. Two young men and a woman (Rachel, played by Chastain) who get entangled in a sex triangle and mess up their mission, because they are too busy with their cavorting.Besides being unprofessional in their behavior, they are also easily influenced by the Nazi criminal, turned into hostage. If it was me, I could not care less about the babbling of a criminal Nazi, but these three Jew agents listen to him as if he was the oracle of Delphi.Back to the future, in 1995, their dirty little secret is almost out in the open. The escaped Nazi is going to give an interview to an Ukranian newspaper. Therefore, the woman (older Rachel, played by Mirren) is sent to Ukraina to silence him for good. The movie ends with a geriatric denouement. Whatever is achieved falls into the category of "too little, too late". I seriously hope real agents are made of better stuff than these three. Also, spy movies deserve more engaging characters.
azn_3004-865-192938
The Debt is good but not great, interesting but not gripping. In my opinion, this movie has a ho-hum quality to it. Most of the acting was good, but the actress who played the young Rachel was not quite believable; the character just didn't have much depth. Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson, while they have little face time in the movie, were, as always, good. My main problem with this movie is that it feels shallow. John Madden, the director, did basically nothing to bring the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis into the movie and therefore into viewers' psyches. There were a few photos, and once in a while you can sense, through the characters, that the Nazis' atrocities are driving the Mossad agents' lives. However, Madden fails at getting anywhere near the psychological depth of the Holocaust. For a movie like this to be successful, the director has to get the viewers to feel the Nazi horrors and therefore the compelling reason for the agents to do this mission. All in all - this movie could have been one that stays with viewers for days. As it is, it felt like "just a movie", "just a made-up story".
AD
