There’s fewer than six degrees of separation between THE DEBT and the upcoming TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, to the point that the former could well have been called Tinker Tailor Soldier Zion.
Like the Le Carre title, THE DEBT is set in the murky masquerade of espionage. Twenty years after World War II, a trio of Mossad agents, Rachel, Stephan and David are sent into East Berlin to extricate a Nazi war criminal, Dieter Vogel, the sadistic surgeon of Birkenau.
The assignment goes awry but apparently accomplished, and the three agents return to Israel as heroes. However, there are secrets within secrets harboured between the heroes, and thirty years on, those secrets surface and like a debt, require reckoning.
The film begins in 1997 when the now retired Rachel (Helen Mirren) and still active Stephan (Tom Wilkinson) hear shocking news about their former colleague David (Ciaran Hinds) just as a book about their exploits, written by Rachel and Stephan’s daughter, is published.
In flashback, we view the Mossad mission with young Rachel portrayed by Jessica Chastain, Stephan by Marton Csokas and David by Sam Worthington.
It’s a suspenseful scenario as Rachel and David pose as a newly married East Berlin couple who engage their quarry, now practicing medicine under a pseudonym, as their physician. Her cover story is that she is experiencing fertility problems and while it is not a scene of torture, the Nazi’s gynecological examination of her is cinematic set on edge stuff, with vague echoes of MARATHON MAN.
The stalking and verification of their target is meticulous, painstaking yet never slack of pace. The drama is double edged as both males vie for the affections of their female colleague, with the dominant Stephan seducing her before the more docile David can demonstrate his ardour.
Ironically, the treatment she is receiving from the former death camp doctor has facilitated her fecundity.
Finally, the doctor is snatched but before he can be despatched back to Israel there is a glitch, a white knuckle suspense sequence at a disused railway station, and the trio are forced to become jailers of their Nazi nemesis.
A taut, suspenseful, claustrophobic drama ensues as the detained doctor ratchets up the pressure by playing on the nerves of his captors. His sly psychology ascertains the prickly relationship between the two men and he attempts to manipulate tensions within the trio.
Validity, veracity and valour come into the moral viewfinder in this thinking person’s thriller. Much relies on a successful mission – a successful outcome would have a number of significant benefits. It would remind the world of the death camps and place Mossad at the forefront of western intelligence. It would be an act of divine justice and a show of strength to the hostile Arab states that surrounded Israel.
Based on an Israeli feature film HA-HOV, this English language version is crisply directed by John Madden from an adaptation by Matthew Vaughan, Jane Goldman and Peter Straughan. Straughan was co-writer on TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, which also stars Ciaran Hinds. The six degrees of separation shrink ever more so.
The sextet of thesps playing the trio in the dual time zones are impeccable, as is their target, the wily Wehrmachter played to a nasty Nazi T by Jesper Christensen.
Jim Clay’s production design, Ben Davis’ cinematography, Natalie Ward’s costumes and Thomas Newman’s score all add to overall excellence of this sensational thriller.
© Richard Cotter
9th November, 2011
Tags: SYDNEY MOVIE OF THE WEEK- THE DEBT, John Madden, Matthew Vaughan, Jane Goldman, Peter Straughan, Jesper Christensen, Jim Clay, Ben Davis, Natalie Ward, Thomas Newman, Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, Ciaran Hinds, Jessica Chastain, Martin Csokas, Sam Worthington.