“The Debt” and its characters are torn between the values of romance and honesty. The story behind the former is a surprisingly convincing love triangle, and the details behind the latter are a generic, if not silly, conspiracy thriller.
Three Israeli agents in 1965 are tasked with apprehending a formerly sadistic Nazi doctor, and in 1997, one agent’s suicide reveals the specifics of their successful mission are not what they seem.
We know this because in the future we are first introduced to Helen Mirren as Rachel Singer. Mirren has a wonderful way of revealing both apprehension and regality simultaneously. She and her ex-husband Stephan (Tom Wilkinson) share a few private words in between their daughter’s book tour documenting their heroic endeavors. It turns out that their fellow agent, David Peretz (Ciaran Hinds), has just committed suicide, and a now disabled Stephan requires Rachel to go back into the field one last time.
The plot demands the older versions of the characters maintain a troubling secret, but this truth is not all that life shattering. To me, it would seem as though the truth would merely be an embarrassment and a slight slap in justice’s face, but little else. Continue reading “The Debt”