The Debt

Directed by John Madden

(R)

***

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“Put Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson together in a movie, and chances are you’re not going to be disappointed,” said Bill Goodykoontz in The Arizona Republic. The Debt “ultimately may not add up to a great movie,” but those two stars more than deliver, as does the rest of the cast. Mirren and Wilkinson play retired Mossad agents who are forced to confront a dark secret they’ve shared for 30 years about a mission in which they captured a Nazi fugitive. Perhaps the most notable performance comes from Jessica Chastain, who plays Helen Mirren’s character as a young woman, said Christopher Orr in TheAtlantic.com. Already garnering buzz this summer for her work in The Tree of Life and The Help, Chastain here plays a young spy, nearly stealing the show by neatly marrying “strength and vulnerability.” But as the suspense grows, the story leaves aside such nuances, said A.O. Scott in The New York Times. What begins as a “finely observed study of desire under duress gives way to a breathless and pedestrian globe-trotting thriller.” Oh well. At least it’s “not a bad one.”