God doesn't plant car bombs.

The Debt

(2010)

John Madden’s film about Mossad Nazi hunters is reasonably compelling when dealing with the 1967 abduction of the Surgeon of Birkenau in East Berlin. The plan, and the fall-out of the failure to transport him out of the city, makes for gripping, claustrophobic cinema.

And the performances of the quartet of players are top notch; Jessica Chastain is as good as you’d expect, while Jesper Christensen’s Nazi doctor only occasionally falls prey to blunderingly obvious dialogue. Martin Csokas is also strong, but the surprise is the sensitive playing of Sam Worthington, who usually comes across as a complete plank.

Less successful is the 1997 framing device, even though it is blessed with more experienced thesps (Tom Wilkinson, Helen Mirren and – ridiculously – Ciaran Hinds as the older Worthington). The plot veers off in a credulity-stretching direction and, despite one edge-of-the-seat sequence, results in the film as a whole feeling much less effective than if it had remained in the Cold War era.

***

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Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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