Bad Movies: The Debt.

So, apparently Helen Mirren will be the star of the remake. That she will outdo Gila Almagor is not a given – the problem with the original version of “The Debt“ lies less with the acting, but very much with the writing. The idea is compelling: An Eichmann-style abduction gone wrong, the failure hidden to save face. But when the failure threatens to come to light, some 30 years later, it is time to kill the Nazi again. That is an interesting, if somewhat farfetched premise. It doesn‘t hold.
The dialogues, if an informed judgement can be based on subtitles, sound like clichés, there is never any sense of the contradictory nature of the fight at the heart of this movie.

This is a trashy movie. And why wouldn‘t it be? Tarantino currently makes a lot of hoop-la with a trashy movie on Nazis. The trash-factor isn‘t what makes this movie annoying, it is its alleged seriousness. Gila Almagor does a good job of representing a woman ashamed of her fame, but the final act of “The Debt“ is pure farce. What‘s worse is that it is farce that takes itself seriously.The most devastating (self-)revelation of (about) the movie comes with Edgar Selge‘s admission that he agreed to do this movie as an act of reconciliation, ultimately asking for forgiveness – not for his acting, but for German history. In German there is a saying: The opposite of good is well-meant. Edgar Selge‘s acting is not so much a cause for embarrasment as it is for pity – to consider a contribution to this movie a contribution to the reconciliation between Jews and Germans is to overestimate a well-meaning movie that has very little to say.

The confrontation between the descendants of victims and perpetrators is reduced to a staring contest between evil and discomfort.It turns ugly when evil takes to action and the Israeli agents fail to be evil enough to respond in kind. Instead, they turn to storytelling that saves their reputation and the Nazi‘s life. So they turn themselves into heroes, but the heroic act never took place. It could have been an interesting exposition, exploring heroism and its content, but instead the movie sends its actors, 30 years older and in fear of their reputation, on what looks like a wild goose chase and plays out as a farce in an old people‘s home. They all die in the end.