The Debt

The Debt is a 2010 drama-thriller film directed by John Madden based on a screenplay written by Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman and Peter Straughan. The film is a remake of the 2007 Israeli film of the same name by Assaf Bernstein. It stars Helen Mirren, Ciarán Hinds and Tom Wilkinson. It premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010. Miramax has announced plans to release the film December 29, 2010, and it is already appearing on lists as a possible 2011 Oscar contender. Before the official December 29, 2010, U.S. premiere, it is scheduled to be shown December 4, 2010, as part of the Washington DC Jewish Film Festival.

The film tells the story of three young Mossad agents on a secret mission to capture and kill a notorious Nazi war criminal in 1965. The story opens to the book launch of Rachel's daughter in the year 1997. Rachel was a part of a trio Israeli spy team sent to find and capture a Nazi doctor and the book was about their success in finding him and the Dr's supposed failed escape and death when Rachel shoots him as was seen from the playing out of the excript that Rachel was reading. However as the story continues, it seems that they didn't tell the entire story. David commits suicide by getting hit by a bus and Rachel and Stefan are cold and distant to each other during the book launch. Thirty years later, a man claiming to be the Nazi surfaces in Ukraine, and one of the former agents must go back undercover to seek out the truth, and stop the story from being published in a magazine.
The time flashes to Berlin 1965. Rachel is the only female of the three and is very beautiful, leading to a love triangle with both Stefan and David. David has his 29th birthday on the mission making the team very young yet experienced. All three agents are undercover in Berlin as they received information about the much sought after Nazi doctor who went into hiding after the war and was accused of experimenting on Jews during WWII. Rachel and David must pretend they are married which creates a tention between the two as they resist the chemistry between each other, especially because David is so distant. Rachel pretends to be a married woman trying to conceive a child in order to take pictures to confirm the identity of the doctor. Rachel and Stefan sleep together after David distances himself from Rachel when they nearly kiss. She becomes pregnant with her daughter.
She returns to the Doctor and after a struggle she injects a fluid into him rendering him unconscious. She fakes that he had a heart attack and David and Stefan impersonate EMS workers and take the Dr. away. They head to the train tracks to transport, but meet trouble along the way. The Doctor awoke and honked the horn of the van alerting the soldiers patrolling the station.
They take the doctor into captivity and keep him alive. They have no idea that he speaks english and reveal their plans to him by mistake. They take shifts in caring for him and both David and Rachel are affected by his words. He reveals her pregnancy to Rachel and David hurting both in the process. David almost kills the Doctor when he starts beating him with a plate. Stefan pulls him off and Rachel is left to clean up the mess. The doctor was able to grab a piece of ceramic and cut his way through the ropes that tied him. As Rachel cleans and lays pots to catch the rain leaking through the roof she is attacked by the doctor and is cut on the face. After a fight she is knocked unconscious and the doctor gets away, a definite variation to the story she told for the past 30 years.
The story cuts back to Rachel 30 years later living off of the glory of what people think she had done and is terrified of the truth resurfacing. David gave her the information that the story may be published by a Ukraine writer. Stefan was stuck in a wheel chair and David died, so Rachel was the only one capable of confirming whether or not the doctor was real. Before Rachel leaves, Stefan hands her a package. Rachel makes the trip to kill the man if he is really the doctor. When she gets to Ukraine, she goes to the writer's office to find out where the mental hospital is where the supposed doctor is being held. On the way she is almost caught sneaking in by a frisky couple of the secretary and a writer sneaking back into the office to take money for a club.
While digging through the things of the writer, she discovers a picture of herself and realizes that the writer knows what she looks like. She finds the address of the hospital and leaves. She calls Stefan and lets him know the address and that the writer knows her looks. The next morning she goes to the hospital and signs in at the front desk where she is asked if she is the reporter (which is when she knows that he is visiting that morning) but she pretends to be the doctor's niece. She is told to sit in the waiting area because the visiting hours begin at 11am, she's 20 minutes too early. While sitting she sees the reporter enter and she sneaks off, but overhears that the doctor is staying in room 414. She leaves not wanting to be seen and drives in her car looking for another way into the building, which she finds. She gets into elevators, climbs up stairs and eventually makes it to the room. She goes to the washroom and readies the siringe that David had given to her in the package.
When she enters the room, she sees a white haired man sitting in a chair, his back to her breathing heavily. She hesitates. She grabs his medical clip board, turns over a page and starts writing on the back of it. The man wakes up and asks her if she is the reporter. She lies and says that she is and he begins a tirade about him being the doctor. She really takes a look at him and knows that it isn't really him especially because of his babbling. Then she turns and goes.
When on her way out, she sees an old man hurrying away, and decides to follow him. She reaches where he is and he mysteriously appears and scares her. He asks "Why did you come here?!" and she knows immediately that he is the real doctor. He stabs her with a pair of scissors he was carrying and they struggle. After he stabs her again and begins to walk away he collapses in another hallway and the siringe is seen in his back. She lays there shivvering and bleeding and picks herself up. She walks slumped down the hallway. While she walks the reporter is below, about to leave the room, when the note written by her catches his eye. He opens it and begins to read and it tells the truth of what really happened that night in Berlin 30 years ago.

 CAST

·  Helen Mirren as Rachel Singer, a former Mossad agent in the 1990s.

·  Jessica Chastain as a young Rachel Singer in the 1960s.

·  Ciarán Hinds as David, a former Mossad agent.

·  Tom Wilkinson as Stefan, a Mossad agent.

·  Sam Worthington as a young David.

·  Marton Csokas as a young Stefan.

·  Jesper Christensen as a Nazi war criminal.

·  Romi Aboulafia as Sarah.