Watching The Debt came as a surprise to me, quite literally. Screened as the second surprise film at the closing night of the 31st Cambridge Film Festival (it doesn’t open nationwide until September 30th), this has probably served John Madden’s film well. Why? I’m not sure I would have bothered had I seen a trailer before.

The film follows three Mossad agents in 1966 East Berlin tasked with abducting a Nazi war criminal now living as a gynaecologist, “The Surgeon of Birkenau”, and bringing him to justice. We also see the ramifications of their actions in 1997 Tel-Aviv, as the daughter of two of the agents releases a book on the events from 1966. As it’s an espionage thriller (based upon an Israeli original), of course, not all goes to plan and everything is not as it seems. Portraying the three are two sets of actors – 1966 featuring the talents of Marton Csokas, Sam Worthington and Jessica Chastain, and the same characters 31 years later by Tom Wilkinson, Ciarán Hinds and Helen Mirren respectively.

The story jumps between sub-ensembles and eras, with the events in one helping us understand and unravel the events in the other. This just about works in holding our attention. The film is above average, but a number of issues come together to prevent The Debt from being anything but merely a two-hour diversion. The central drama of the film and some character’s motivations seem utterly confused. A moral dilemma is what drives the story to its conclusion. However, it feels like the script tries to create a moral dilemma when there arguably isn’t one. Now, this could be a case of me personally not sharing the morals of the characters – who knows? – but it never seemed to click with me. Regardless, there are other issues.

“…the romance in 1966 never quite reaches the necessary emotional resonance, because Sam Worthington conveys all the emotional depth of a particularly passive pebble”

A key part of the drama is a derailed romance between Chastain and Worthington. Hinds, as the elder version of Worthington, gets very little screen time unfortunately (for what will be obvious reasons should you see the film), but the leading women are excellent. As indifferent as I was to The Tree of Life, Chastain’s talent was clear. Disappointingly, the romance in 1966 never quite reaches the necessary emotional resonance, because Worthington conveys all the emotional depth of a particularly passive pebble. Admittedly, I’ve only seen Worthington in this, Terminator: Regurgitation and Avatar – but I can’t keep giving him the benefit of the doubt much longer.

Whilst refreshing to have a film that deals with period espionage and holocaust aftermath without it being a USA/Russia affair or a Worthy Holocaust Film™®, it doesn’t quite elevate itself sufficiently above its more run-of-the-mill brethren. The fact the concluding pensioner-fight raised a few laughs, when it was meant to elicit gasps does much to illustrate that the film misses its more difficult targets.

Although an entertaining enough distraction, with some tense sequences and decent acting, the problems mean the film never really settles its debt to the audience for turning up in the first place.