What Do The Critics Say?

"A decent but unspectacular war crimes tale is elevated above the ordinary here by the sheer calibre of its cast: including Helen Mirren, Sam Worthington, Tom Wilkinson and rising star Jessica Chastain. The movie is an entertaining addition to the recent wave of retro spy films." Dave Aldridge RADIO TIMES "Helen Mirren, Ciarán Hinds and Tom Wilkinson play Rachel, David and Stephan, three retired Mossad agents who in 1997 are patriotic celebrities in Israel for their sensational 1965 mission to track down a sadistic Nazi war criminal, the "surgeon of Birkenau". Solid, workmanlike storytelling is what's on offer in this meaty thriller with robust and satisfying star turns. There's some well-crafted suspense." Peter Bradshaw UK GUARDIAN "Christensen's performance rises to the level of the Academy Award-winning. Besides the splendid acting and the riveting story, the movie's other strengths include the fight choreography and an original musical score by composer Thomas Newman. Keith Cohen ENTERTAINMENT SPECTRUM "While the entire movie is great and the cast completely flawless, the absolute best parts are of the movie are the flashbacks to the mission. Mirren is terrific and quite believable. Chastain matches her brilliantly. Jessica Chastain is officially at the top of my new actresses to watch list." Scott Nash THREE MOVIE BUFFS "A thriller with such powerful and emotive elements as The Debt towers above the everyday crime thriller, drawing on the cinematic oxygen of Nazi atrocities and their legacy. The stakes are higher, the imperatives to satisfy justice greater and the emotional agenda larger. The film begins with a bang, unsettling and unexpected, before it takes us through a series of establishing scenes." Andrew L Urban URBAN CINEFILE "The set-up is perfect. The Hannibal Lecter of WWII vs clean cut kid Mossad agents Rachel, Stephen and David. After starting with a slam-bam opening of the three as sixty-somethings, the film makes remarkable use of flashbacks to take them back to their stalking of the dreaded criminal. The result is a very entertaining film with a twisty and poignant ending. Great sound track by solid gold film composer Thomas Newman. He knows how to string out an audience." Ron Wilkinson MONSTERS & CRITICS

"The picture is more than just a straightforward espionage thriller as it examines the consequences of the operation in later life when we witness how it has defined the characters, publicly and privately, in very different ways, raising some compelling questions about truth, responsibility and justice. The older cast convince as versions of their younger selves, although I’m not sure Worthington will be too happy to have morphed into the flabby Ciaran Hinds, and there are some very watchable face-offs between Mirren and Wilkinson. Powerful performances, good twists and fast-pacing." Henry Fitzherbert DAILY EXPRESS "A classy cast, including Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson and the up-and-coming Jessica Chastain, comes together in a terrific Cold War thriller about Mossad agents. A blockbuster with brains, one that neatly examines the psychological toll of living with a long-standing lie. While confronting big themes, it’s also a film that never forgets to excite. As a tense and exciting thriller, it scores a bullseye." David Edwards UK DAILY MIRROR "The urgent plot, convincing performances and sudden spurts of violence saturate it with an overwhelming amount of suspense that makes it far more exciting than most thrillers this year. Worthington finds a role in which he can act as a disgruntled Jew who lost his family in the war. Bent toward revenge and motivated by hate, his character depicts a post-war state of mind, putting into question the very concept of justice." David Roark PASTE MAGAZINE "The intrigue begins with a series of events that flicker back and forth in two time frames. The tension is palpable enhanced by Thomas Newman's eclectic and discordant music score. The lead up to the film's powerful climax will make you reel. Superb filmmaking at every turn. If you like your spy thrillers tense, gripping and meaningful, The Debt should be on the top of your must-see list." Louise Keller URBAN CINEFILE

The Inside Story After the Israeli feature film Ha¬Hov [The Debt], directed by Assaf Bernstein and produced by Eitan Evan, opened in 2007, the thriller received four nominations for Israel’s Academy Awards equivalent. Evan credits the film’s having been sold for distribution to countries beyond Israel to "its original story, combined with the thriller plot about Mossad agents on a mission. Mossad is an institution, one of the best in the world for espionage and intelligence, and the film had an authenticity to it with regard to them." Producer Eduardo Rossoff ("Ave María") took note of the film as being ideal for an English language remake, tied to its unique two-tiered storyline revolving around thirty year old secrets coming to light, and brought "Ha-Hov" to the attention of producer Kris Thykier ("Harry Brown"), who was instantly intrigued. He recalls: "It was a spectacular story, and brilliantly acted. I did feel that there was an opportunity for a little more complexity and scale; I saw the potential of making a smart thriller that would be relevant to: and entertaining for; a world audience." After viewing the film, Thykier’s producing partner Matthew Vaughn ("Layer Cake") agreed. As Evan spoke with Thykier by phone and then in person to finalize the new project, Vaughn started work on the script adaptation for the remake with his screenwriting partner Jane Goldman. Six months later, the producers presented the script to Oscar nominated director John Madden ("Shakespeare in Love"). Madden notes he found the screenplay offered, " a visceral narrative in which both the emotional and moral stakes are very high, coupled with depth in the characterizations. One’s engagement in the material deepens as the story becomes more complex and begins to exercise more of a grip. I was transfixed. I hadn’t seen the Israeli film when I read the script. I felt I needed to watch it and I’m glad I did, but then I didn’t look at it again." Thykier revealed: "We were thrilled that John was interested, and we quickly started preparing the project with him. He is a genuine renaissance man, totally involved and committed from the start to making the material work as a movie." Madden began honing the script with screenwriter Peter Straughan ("The Men Who Stare at Goats"). "The level of narrative development in the material is unusual in that the audience is constantly kept guessing about just what’s going on and we wanted to heighten that. Assaf Bernstein and Ido Rosenblum’s script for the original film had an underlying foundation and structure that was solid, and Matthew and Jane had already developed the story in some interesting ways," the director notes. But as Peter and I began to work on the story, we found new directions emerging. And the thematic emphasis of the film started to shift." Evan agrees, adding that "the new film involves the past much more than the present, and there is more action. The Debt also delves deeper into the psychology of the Israeli characters." Thykier observes: "With the script’s intelligence, and depth of character, we now had what I saw as a return to the 1970s thrillers that I had grown up on, like Three Days of the Condor and Marathon Man." With such actor driven thrillers in mind, Madden knew that the cast "would be central to The Debt. Inevitably these characters would be close to us, often very close. We watch them making a choice, see it ripple through a lifetime, and witness its profound effects." Nowhere was this more important than with the lead character of Rachel Singer. The filmmakers needed an actress of a certain age to embody Rachel in 1997. She would have to be someone capable of conveying the uncertainty that haunts her, and embracing the physical challenges. With those critical prerequisites, did they have a particular actress in mind? It seems the did, as Thykier revealed: "Who else could it be but Helen Mirren? We’d always thought of her for this role." Madden who had previously directed Mirren in one of her celebrated "Prime Suspect" telefilms notes, "That was a fantastic experience for me. Helen is an actress at the top of her game, and she likes to test herself. She is fearless. Helen responded immediately to the challenge of this material. Here’s a role which required her to intimate the wounds and the corrosive effect of events suppressed over thirty years. The tension and pain of a decision made long ago are evident; she literally bears a scar from what happened back then. All this has to come across amidst the pace and excitement of a thriller." "Aside from wanting to work with John again and the fact that this was a good thriller story, I was interested in exploring the notion of how every action you take in life has a result, a consequence, and sooner or later you are going to have to face up to it," the 2007 Oscar winner for "The Queen", notes. How would she described the character she plays? "Rachel has buried her true emotions and has existed for many years on a superficial level, not confronting the depth of her real feelings about things. She finds she has to do that, and much more." For that 'much more', Mirren ("Calendar Girls") rose to the occasion, learning the basic moves of krav maga, the renowned tactical defense skillthat is rooted in hand to hand combat. Krav maga is the official selfdefense system of the Israeli Defense Forces. But, as Mirren ("Last Orders") points out: "at this point in her life, Rachel is retired and hasn’t fought in some years, so I wanted to keep that realistic. While she was trained in krav maga, that was a long time ago." With their latterday Rachel set, the filmmakers turned to casting the younger incarnation. Madden (who directed Nicolas Cage, Penélope Cruz and John Hurt in "Captain Corelli's Mandolin") didn't want to be "enslaved by the necessity to find a lookalike actress. But then we did find the perfect actress, who has an extraordinary physical affinity with Helen." Rising star Jessica Chastain (Celia Foote in "The Help") was recommended to Madden "by an agent I trust, someone who didn’t even represent her." Chastain had recently filmed "The Tree of Life" for director Terrence Malick, who, when phoned by Madden, offered an overwhelmingly positive recommendation. "He was happy to talk forever about her," Madden recalls. "When I first read the script, I didn’t even see it as a thriller. To me, it was a drama and a love story. It was so good that I felt, ‘I have to be in this movie. I wanted to work with John Madden because he works both in theatre and film, and that’s what I like to do as well, Chastain offered. "I do a lot of research, and I went into my first meeting with John very prepared." Impressing the filmmakers with her grasp of the character, Chastain got the plum part. "She is magnetic to watch," says Madden. "She elicits an emotional involvement from the viewer. There’s no equivocation in the choices she makes, and emotionally she is absolutely clear." Chastain did lack experience in one key area; "Before "The Debt", I had no idea how to even throw a punch; I had never been in a fight in my life." So, she trained with a krav maga expert four times a week for four months in Los Angeles before coming to London for rehearsal with her fellow actors. Madden says the result was, "she does all of her own fighting and stunts in the film." Chastain revealed training did have some benefits. "I packed on a little bit of muscle, and, considering that I am a pacifist, I really enjoyed filming the fight scenes." Chastain’s onand offscreen colleagues include Sam Worthington (Barry 'Wattsy' Wirth in "Gettin' Square"), who portrays David, the idealistic but conflicted Mossad agent who is drawn to Rachel almost immediately. "John pitched me the story while visiting me on a movie set, and he completely sold me on his vision of these three people who confront a monster but are then haunted for decades. This makes for quite a thriller," AFI Best Actor Winner Worthington ("Somersault") says. To play Stephan, the driven leader of the unit, the filmmakers cast Marton Csokas ("Rain"), whom Madden praises as "brilliant. He’s got this louche sexuality about him, and he brings a sense of danger and a neurotic energy to Stephan that creates a dramatic tension amongst the trio. It’s Stephan’s choices that drive the story." Csokas sees his character as being "a potent force, and fervent about bringing the Surgeon of Birkenau to justice." The next step was to develop the chemistry among them. "On this film, beyond working on the text and doing some improvisation, we had to rehearse the unique physical component," Madden notes. So it was, that, like Chastain, Csokas and Worthington underwent training for the krav maga sequences. The three actors trained together for nearly two weeks. "Eastern Promises" and "Brighton Rock" Fight/stunt coordinator Julian Spencer notes: "Krav maga moves are so fast that we had to work on slowing them down a little bit for the camera. Otherwise, the viewer would be left wondering, What happened. John would allow me to step in and give my five minutes worth of notes to the actors, and then he would bring it all to life with them, incorporating the blocking." The shared history that binds David and Stephan to Rachel was borne out in the casting of Ciarán Hinds and Tom Wilkinson, both of whom had worked before with Dame Helen Mirren. "This is in fact the sixth time that Ciarán has worked with Helen," Madden revealed. "They truly do have a long history together, and in this particular movie they bring a poignancy to their characters’ relationship." Hinds muses; "I seem to ambush Helen every five years or so. It’s enormously pleasing, and the experience is always compelling for me, at any rate!" Approached to play the older Stephan, Tom Wilkinson O.B.E. (who played Peter Rawlins, the former husband of Mirren's character Inspector Jane Tennison in the first series of the popular British detective series "Prime Suspect") was drawn to the project by the prospect of reuniting not only with Mirren, whom he calls "a wonderful person", but also with Madden, for whom he had starred in the Oscar winning "Shakespeare in Love". Was there something else that drew Wilkinson ("In The Bedroom") to the role? "With regard to this story, what interested me was, can one be redeemed after the endless duplicity of being a secret agent? There’s an element of a movie I did a couple of years ago, "Michael Clayton", in "The Debt", and also of Sidney Lumet’s thrillers. When everything you do is accompanied by spin, all the common decencies we take for granted in our lives: all the morals, the ethics; are completely eroded away. So Stephan’s relationship with Rachel has gone distant, but he manipulates her anew, in a game with destiny that could be fatal." Copenhagen-born Jesper Christensen met all the criteria to play Dieter Vogel. The actor was coming off of back to back turns as James Bond antagonist Mr White in "Casino Royale" and "Quantum of Solace". Christensen ("The Young Victoria") saw "The Debt" as "a thinking man’s thriller with multiple layers. When I read the script, I wanted to see what happened next: and I didn’t see what was coming." What's It All About?

Tel Aviv, Israel, 1999. Rachel, Stephan & David have been venerated for decades by Israel because of the secret mission that they embarked on for their country back in 1965/1966, when the trio tracked down a Nazi war criminal in East Berlin: knwon as the Surgeon of Birkenau. Their original mission was to bring Vogel back to Israel where he would face trial for his war crimes, which include performing horrific medical experiments on young Jewish children during WW2. No-one is more proud of the trio's effort, than Rachel's daughter Sarah who has written a book on the events that led to Vogel's death at the hand of her mother. An uneasy Rachel is called to read an excerpt from the book. As she does so, her mind flashes back to East Germany and the mission that made the three young mossad agents, heroes for life. When a tormented David kills himself, Rachel's forced to face her demons.

The Verdict "In lesser hands, this could have been quite forgettable, but thanks to Madden's desire to find the right cast as opposed to striking resemblances, the performance of all concerned: from the cast to the production team; has elevated "The Debt" to a higher level. But, the obvious key (if the film was to succeed) was to find the right actresses for the role of Rachel and the right actor to play the young Mossad Agent's target: the Surgeon of Birkenau. In the case of the latter, they certainly got it right with Jesper Christensen, a veteran of world cinema (including "Casino Royale", "Quantum of Solace", "The Interpreter" and "Italian For Beginners") who has starred in a host of Danish films and television series as well as twenty five years of theatre work. As one would expect, Mirren gives a strong performance as the older Rachel, but it's Jessica Chastain's performance as the young Rachel that will grab audiences attention. Chastain, who attended the Juilliard School in New York City thanks to the prestigious Robin Williams Scholarship, made her mark on the stage before getting her break in the film industry with Dan Ireland's "Jolene". It's an understatement to say that since doing so, she has gone from strength to strength. Marton Csokas is the pick of the rest. An undemanding film in so much as all it asks of it's audience is to sit back and take the ride. As far as thrillers go, "The Debt" delivers. It is to say, at the very least: simply outstanding. 4 1/2 STARS." Who Is Playing Who?

Helen Mirren Tom Wilkinson Ciarán Hinds Jessica Chastain Marton Csokas Sam Worthington Jesper Christensen Brigitte Kren Romi Aboulafia Melinda Korcsog Tomer Ben David Ohev Ben David Jonathan Uziel Alexander Fennon István Betz Alexander Jagsch András Szurdi Kátya Tompos József Rácz István Göz

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Rachel Stephan David Young Rachel Young Stephan Young David Doktor Bernhardt/Dieter Vogel Frau Bernhardt/Nurse Sarah Young Sarah Sarah's Husband Sarah's Son Mossad Agent Postal Worker Train Driver Border Guard Soldier Newspaper Receptionist/Kátya Kátya's Boyfriend Yuri Tiov

The Production Team Directed by John Madden Screenplay Matthew Vaughn/Jane Goldman/Peter Straughan Original film "Ha¬Hov" screenplay by Assaf Bernstein & Ido Rosenblum Produced by Eitan Evan/Eduardo Rossoff/Kris Thykier/Matthew Vaughn Original Music by Thomas Newman Cinematography by Ben Davis Film Editing by Alexander Berner Casting by Michelle Guish Production Design by Jim Clay Supervising Art Director Peter Francis Art Direction by Dominic Masters Set Decoration by John Bush Costume Design by Natalie Ward Run Time 113 minutes Rated MA15+ [AUST] Copyright ©2011 - Focus Features/Universal Pictures - All Rights Reserved Enduring © - The Movie Pages & Impact Internet Services - All Rights Reserved. Protected by Australian & International Copyright, Trademark Laws & Intellectual Property Rights.