Review of The Debt (2010) by Karim M — 26 Feb 2012

I was really excited to see this movie. I'm a big fan of the more traditional spy movies. This really looked to be one of the good ones that showed off trade craft and all of the intricacies of a more realistic spy flick. This was my kind of movie!

The Debt stars Helen Mirren as a Mossad agent, along with her two partners, trying to capture a World War II war criminal. The film is told through a series of flashbacks, so the story has a young/old of each character. Mirren along with Tom Wilkinson and Ciaran Hinds play the older versions of each character which is the more recent in the timeline. The younger characters are played by Jessica Chastain (Mirren), Marton Csokas (Wilkinson), and Sam Worthington (Hinds). All of these actors were really terrific in the movie. The ones that stood out though were Mirren and Chastain as the stars of the movie. While I don't normally like Worthington, he was a good fit for this role.

The story is very good. The flashbacks can be confusing at times but they really do a nice job of laying out the story nicely. The Debt's story was like watching puzzle pieces come together. Flashbacks don't always work well but I was impressed here. The ending was a little bit disappointing but it was more realistic, I think, than most other spy films and that impressed me.

I would highly recommend checking out The Debt. I don't just mean if you like spy movies, I think most people would really enjoy this one. There is love, intrigue, action, espionage, and nice cinematics. I liked this one a lot.