The Debt (2011)

     The Debt

Avery's Review

Sorry for the gap since the last review. School and whatnot.

      A short and sweet review? No can do. I’ll try, though.

     Through about half of the movie, my brain was aching from trying to figure out just what in the world was going on. The movie kept switching between two different time periods involving the same three people. It took me about thirty minutes to finally get that much straight. Aside from this, I was not super interested in what was going on in the movie, but I was not bored either. Everything was fairly bland. However, the plot twist that is delivered in this movie is what really got me liking this movie.  However, that affection was soon crushed.

     The Debt  stars Sam Worthington, Helen Mirren, Jesper Christensen, and Marton Csokas, along with others who play those actors’ respective roles in different time periods. The movie revolves around three Mossad agents who were sent to Germany to capture and bring back a Nazi war criminal (Christensen) who had sadistically experimented on thousands of Jews. After thirty years have passed since their mission, they have been celebrated as heroes for their work, yet something dark lingers over all three of them.

The acting is good, to use a bland word. I do not recall a single performance being unbelievable or just bad. I thought Christensen and Jessica Chastain (who portrayed the young version of Rachel, the main protagonist) delivered the strongest performances in the film.       

     I mentioned earlier that there was a huge plot twist that really grabbed my attention. It got me excited for the rest of the movie. However, I was sadly disappointed to find out that the movie’s ending…really did not tie up things. Lots of things were insinuated, but nothing was every fully explained, or rather, closed up. Happenings in the movie seemed too coincidental or unbelievable, even though they were executed well. Probably one of the things I liked most about The Debt was the fact that it portrayed the protagonists, Rachel, David, and Stefan, as normal humans with just a bit of combat training. In other words, when they got injured, they did not instantly jump back up as if nothing had happened. They seemed legitimately human, a rarity in movies nowadays. (I will refrain from talking about how the methods of causing people to become unconscious were not realistic, even if they were better than most movies.) Another pet peeve about this film is that the action happened so fast to the point that the motions were not comprehendible. Maybe we’ll get a Director’s Cut with slow-mo?

     According to my mom, the advertisements praised "Helen Mirren with a gun." I do not recall seeing her with a gun...a syringe, yes. A gun, no. Maybe I just missed something, though.

     Overall, the movie was more frustrating than enjoyable. It was a fun ride, but an ultimately unsatisfying one. Had five more minutes been added onto the feature (which was already of Harry Potter length), I feel that everything could have been cleared up. As a movie reviewer, I’m sorry I am not going into as much detail as I normally would; it’s late, I’m still confused about this movie, and, well, it’s late. Sorry, guys. Maybe I'll be up to par next time. 

Avery's Rating: 3 out of 5

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