The Debt

British director John Madden returns with the remake of the Israeli thriller about three Mossad agents whose assignment to track a Nazi war criminal has left its marks on their personal and professional lives. Three young agents meet and fall in love in East Berlin in 1965 while hunting for a notorious criminal. Thirty years later they are forced to examine the past that might change their future. Madden seems to struggle to fit three films into one, a thriller, a love triangle and historical drama. He succeeds in many parts, specially in the thriller department with riveting set-pieces but becomes heavy handed with the three characters in two periods in the context of the the bigger political picture. Although fictional, the story seems credible enough to be true. The solid cast includes Sam Worthington, Jessica Chastain and Marton Csokas playing the younger versions of Ciarán Hinds, Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson. YRCinema's coverage of the 33rd edition of the Mill Valley Film Festival.