The Debt

“The Debt” is the story of three Israeli Mossad agents and the events that took place 30 years ago, what takes place years later and how the two time spans interact into their personal, political and professional lives. The film stars Tom Wilkinson, Sam Worthington, Jessica Chastain and Helen Mirren in this intended cold war thriller. This is a remake of a 2007 Israeli film entitled “Ha Hov” (i.e. “The Debt” in Hebrew). Directed by John Madden (“Shakespeare In Love”) and co-written by Mathew Vaughn, Jane Goldman and Peter Straughan, the film is, supposedly based on actual occurrences. On paper, at least, it has all the ingredients for an adventure film with a great plot. Unfortunately, the movie moves rather slowly and is tedious at times as it gets a little too involved in the personal lives of the Mossad agents while not going deep enough into the world of significant political events taking place around them. In fairness to the performances and certain segments of the screenplay, the film does manage to hold the audience’s interest in spite of its almost 2 hour duration which, quite honestly, seemed longer than that. I give the film 2 and ½ stars with a concern that its title may be the precursor for the amount appearing on Miramax’ balance sheet after the grosses are computed.