Here in Korea, The Debt just came out in theaters. I didn't know it at the time. Mostly because it came out with an alternate title. Here it's called, "Unfinished." If you've seen the movie, I'll let you decide which is a better title. For me, there wasn't any debt in the movie. The word "debt" denotes some kind of obligation. I never got that feeling from this movie.
Basically, the story is about three Mossad agents and their failure on an important mission back in the 1960's. They all feel incredibly guilty about it and they lie to cover up their failure.
I'm struggling to think of what to say. Overall, the movie felt disappointing. It wasn't bad, but wasn't all that good either. I'm really at a loss as to why.
So, there will be spoilers I'm afraid. And the next part of this review is more going to be a journey into my thought process as I try to understand my own feelings about it as well.
Why didn't I like this movie? There were some great, tense moments in this movie. When young Rachel had to pose as a woman looking to get pregnant because the Nazi Dr. Vogel was now a gynocologist in East Berlin, having this butcher of a man groping around down there, her holding back her disgust, not wanting to accidentily say or do the wrong thing. It's a tense moment.
The acting was really good. They do this out of sequence story telling. Most of the movie is about the mission. Helen Mirren is Rachel in 1997 where we start the movie. We then have Jessica Chastin playing the young Rachel in 1965. Some people have complained that switching times like this made it hard to follow, I didn't have much problem. I guess the biggest problem was that the flashback scenes took up so much of the movie. An hour an a half into a 2 hour movie and then we get the big realization that the doctor got away. Then the last few minutes of the movie are spent worrying that some old man in a hospital might be Vogel and he wants to talk.
Yeah. That's why I didn't like the movie. The first hour and a half is about the mission. We catch this barbarian of a doctor who did horrible things to people during the war. And we see the failure of the Mossad agents. He gets away and goes into hiding. The three are left with a choice. Tell the truth that they failed, or lie about it. They chose to lie about it. And for the next 30 years, nothing happens. Vogel never turns up. Nobody is really looking for him anymore. Any victim's families think that he's dead and they are happy. The mission leader, Stefan marries Rachel and has a successful career. Rachel gives birth to a beautiful daughter. She becomes a writer and writes her first book about her Mom and Dad and the mission. David goes and travels the world. Everyone is pretty much happy. Vogel just disappears from everyone's memory. Except the Mossad agents that remember and feel like schmucks for lieing for 30 years.
But in the last part of the movie where they get word that Vogel might've resurfaced, it wasn't about fixing a mistake, it was about saving their own backsides. It was about making sure Vogel is dead and preserving the cover-up. And for as much as I love Helen Mirren, her in a fist fight with a 90 year old man isn't all that entertaining.
The movie also had too many swerves to it. And they weren't even unexpected swerves. In the beginning we get a flashback while Rachel is reading her daughter's book. She reads the part where she kills Vogel. We are meant to think that's how it happened. Unless we've seen the trailers or read any synopsis of the movie. We know that's a lie so it's not much drama when it's revealed that Vogel got away. We also know they escaped East Berlin alive and okay because that was the first scene of the movie. This is why flashbacks are so tricky to use. We see the characters alive so we know that they make it through. That detracts from the drama. We aren't thinking, "will he get out of this?" or "How is he going to get out of this?" We instead are thinking, "when will he get out of this?" The audience is outpacing the movie. Not a good thing. That's when the audience starts looking at their watches and are not interested in what is happening.
What would I have done differently? Tough question. We really have a problem of having too much plot. Would telling the story in proper sequence help? Not really. Again, the whole point of the movie was that the Mossad agents failed and lied about it. Then the "debt" is that they have to live with the guilt, never tell the truth, and cover it all up when the lie is threatened. Except the lie was never really threatened. The guy they believe to be Vogel turns out to be a sick, old, dilusional man but got his information from the real Vogel who was a patient in the same hospital. But let's back up a minute. Let's say for a moment that the newspaper article that was going to be written about Vogel got published. So what? The Israeli government would just deny it saying it came from some anti-semites looking to embarrass their country. Some would believe that. Others wouldn't. But nothing would really happen. Why so much urgency to kill Vogel after 30 years? He wasn't bothering anyone. He happily disappeared and nobody was ever the wiser. He wasn't interested in confessing. He couldn't care less!
Then in the end Rachel confesses about the cover-up. Why? Well, we get a plausible why. David was cracking under all the stress of keeping the secret. Boy, when I say that, he's a terrible spy. Anyway, David kills himself because of his guilty conscious. That makes Rachel feel guilty. She says she wants to do something to make her daughter feel proud of her. Like what? Sabotaging her writing career? Making her first book a hollow lie? Making all the stories and feelings she grew up with thinking her mother was a hero disappear? This was good for her? I don't normally side with the horrible corrupt government official, but in this case Stefan is right. The truth doesn't benefit anyone. You failed your mission and the guilt you feel is your punishment for failing.
Overall, it's put together well. The acting is great and the direction is top notch. It's just the story needed a lot more work. They set the scene way too far into the future. Instead, it should've been about protecting Rachel's daughter. Set it about 5 years into the future and have Vogel resurface and threatening to do to the child what he did during the war. That would've added a lot more to it. But then we wouldn't get Hellen Mirren.
It's enjoyable. But not all that memorable. Shame.
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