Movies Showing September 2011: The Debt

Film Title: The Debt

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 Dieter Vogel.
• Romi Aboulafia as Sarah.

DIRECTOR: John Madden

WRITER: Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman


PLOT:
Three former Mossad agents are famous for the 1965 death of Nazi war criminal Dieter Vogel, "The Surgeon of Birkenau," who (according to the official story) committed suicide after being captured by them. However, 35 years later, a local paper in a small European town publishes an article that the criminal is alive, willing to admit his crimes.

When the agents, now in their late 60s, learn this news, they realize it is possible that it is true, because only they remember how their prisoner managed to escape, and how they invented the story of his death. With their reputation on the line, they decide to complete the assignment they once had, and return to find and kill Vogel. Rachel Singer (played by Helen Mirren, and Jessica Chastain in flashbacks), now a beloved Israeli writer who became famous for her book on the supposed 1965 capture and death of Vogel, is chosen to carry out the assassination if the story that Vogel is alive turns out to be true. The question is whether that story is true, and if it is, will the mission succeed this second time around?

PHOTOS: (Movie trailer below)



NEWS:

• The film premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010. Miramax originally announced plans to release the film in the United States on December 29, 2010, and it quickly began to appear on lists of possible 2011 Oscar contenders. Before the official December 29, 2010, U.S. premiere, it was shown December 4, 2010, as part of the Washington DC Jewish Film Festival, and as early as October 17, at the Mini Valley Film Festival. However, the film was one of two films that had their official opening dates delayed (now projected for 2011) as a result of a "transaction between [Miramax] owner Disney and soon-to-be new owners, construction magnate Ron Tutor and Tom Barrack's Santa Monica-based Colony Capital (led by former Disney CFO Richard Nanula)...."
• In February 2011, the announcement was made that the new release date had been scheduled for August 31, 2011.

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