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The Debt
By Sr. Rose Pacatte, F.S.P.
Source: AmericanCatholic.org
"The Debt" is a U.S. version of the 2007 Israeli film "Ha-Hov." It tells the
story of three young Mossad agents (played by Jessica Chastain as Rachel,
Marton Csokas as Stefan, and Sam Worthington as David and later by Helen
Mirren, Tom Wilkinson and Ciarán Hinds) who are sent to East Berlin to
capture a Nazi war criminal, Dieter Vogel (Jesper Christensen)
and bring him to Israel to stand trial for war crimes.
They succeed in capturing him but he escapes after a
very tense and dangerous effort to sneak him out of the city. Stefan convinces
Rachel and David to agree to tell their superiors that they killed Vogel. They
agree. Stefan and Rachel marry while David resigns from the Mossad and
disappears – only to return.
“The Debt” is an interesting title. Whose debt is
it? The three spies who lie are indebted to the truth? Vogel must pay his debt
to humanity for his crimes?
Ultimately, the toll taken on Rachel and David in
particular, is too much to bear and each, in their own way, resolve a dilemma
that Stefan takes in his stride, as long as it does not reveal that he is
amoral. Or is he a patriot?
This is a very provocative film and though the
subject explores the deepest and darkest recesses of the human heart and our
own inhumanity to one another, the film has substance, it is
interesting and extremely well acted and directed.
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