The Debt
Miramax Films | Release Date: August 31, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
65
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
27
Mixed:
10
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyAug 30, 2011
Bristling with dangers both corporeal and cerebral, The Debt is a superbly crafted espionage thriller packed with Israeli-Nazi score settling. Read full review
83
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallSep 7, 2011
Christensen plays him with Lecter-like intensity; the unsettling calmness of someone capable of anything. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanAug 31, 2011
The Debt is basically an entertaining riff on "Munich." It's about a (fictional) operation of top secret Israeli revenge, carried out by three highly trained agents whose plan goes off the rails in ways that are more fascinating than the mission itself. Read full review
80
Village VoiceMichael AtkinsonAug 30, 2011
Predictably, the holes in the narrative set us up for a twist or three, but, in balance, it's a pleasure to be back in the wet alleys and spy-patrolled streets of the GDR, however vague they seem without '60s black-and-white cinematography. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzAug 30, 2011
This is real edge-of-your-seat stuff, in a throwback way - no booming special effects, just old-school timing and execution. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleAug 31, 2011
It is an exciting movie, full of crises and dramatic turns despite an aura of sadness that seems to pervade it. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerAug 31, 2011
Although they might have wished for something less conventional, it's the thrills that make this movie. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanAug 30, 2011
Madden has the wisdom to give most of the heavy emotional lifting to Mirren, who continues to shine at the age of 66. Read full review
75
Washington PostJohn DeForeAug 30, 2011
A more daring script might have found ways to tell the stories in parallel, doling out just enough information to keep viewers involved. But, as it is, The Debt grasps the viewer pretty firmly, delivering thrills without trivializing the moral quandaries that set it in motion. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia PuigAug 30, 2011
With its blend of taut action and profound revelations, The Debt is definitely worth an audience's investment. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn LevyAug 30, 2011
A story like this requires a villain worthy of decades of built up horror and rage, and Christensen provides a thoroughly credible stimulus for the nail-biting events of the film. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaAug 30, 2011
What the three pairs of actors lack in semblance (or resemblance), they make up for to a great extent in their performances. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonAug 30, 2011
The Debt eventually settles into a predictable groove that slightly undercuts its impact. Still, it's a film of ambition and substance. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubNathan RabinAug 30, 2011
Madden's dark, moody, complex exploration of guilt and identity taps into a rich vein of moral ambiguity, but the filmmakers should know that in the face of unspeakable Nazi evil, the romantic problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 30, 2011
The acting is superb across-the-board, with the three younger performers deserving accolades. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrAug 30, 2011
The film's a potboiler but a gripping one, and it leaves you chewing on both its nuances and implausibilities. Read full review
75
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreAug 28, 2011
"The Debt," a very good 2007 Israeli thriller with Cold War and Holocaust connections, earns a nerve-wracking and entertaining Hollywood remake. Read full review
70
TimeRichard CorlissAug 31, 2011
The Debt is a little too gray and stolid - by which we may simply mean too true to its complex milieu - to qualify as scintillating entertainment. But at the end of a summer in which anything like reality was banned from movie houses, this gnarly political thriller has a tonic effect Read full review
70
VarietyJordan MintzerAug 30, 2011
The remake ups the adrenaline factor, and features strong performances across the board, yet feels bogged down by a weighty love triangle and a subject that merits more than the old-school good vs. evil approach. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottAug 30, 2011
As The Debt grows more complex and suspenseful, it also becomes more literal, losing some of its dramatic intensity. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenSep 1, 2011
Perhaps the discrete delegation of the thrills to the 1966 story and the moral quandaries to the 1997 story is what prevents The Debt from congealing as well as it might have. Life is rarely that neat. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenAug 31, 2011
Political thrillers with flawed heroes demand a different potion, one that mixes the grit of reality with the seeds of excitement until they reach a critical mass and explode. In that sense, for all its strengths and good intentions, The Debt owes a debt to the wrong genre – Birkenau wasn't fantasy; too often, this movie is. Read full review
63
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottAug 31, 2011
There are some nice surprises in store, as well, but the longer Madden's story goes on, the more manufactured things tend to feel. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversAug 31, 2011
Chastain (a nifty match-up with Mirren) is a live wire, and her scenes with Csokas and Worthington have a spark the later scenes lack. No matter. The Debt holds you in its grip. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertAug 30, 2011
The architecture of The Debt has an unfortunate flaw. The younger versions of the characters have scenes that are intrinsically more exciting, but the actors playing the older versions are more interesting. Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson and Ciaran Hinds bring along the weight of their many earlier roles. To be sure, the older actors get some excitement of their own, but by then, the plot has lost its way. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineNick SchagerAug 27, 2011
Its performances are resourceful and affecting, with Chastain and Worthington in the past sequences, and Mirren and Wilkinson in the later chapters, exuding a complicated mess of responsibility, guilt, sacrifice, revenge, and regret. Read full review
61
NPRElla TaylorSep 2, 2011
The movie drowns the deeper questions it raises in a sadistic procedural, an endless circular motion of fight scenes whose only justification is themselves. Read full review
60
EmpireStaff (Not credited)Sep 26, 2011
A smart, tense, well-acted thriller undercut by a disappointing finale and an occasional lack of focus. But at least this offers something for those looking for a film with more on its mind than simple set-pieces. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttSep 2, 2011
As a thriller, The Debt performs many if not all the right moves. Where the John Madden-directed film gets into trouble is in wanting to deal with the Holocaust without being entirely a period film. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanAug 31, 2011
Despite some early whispers of awards potential, The Debt is nothing more than a gritty thriller with a highbrow pedigree. Read full review
60
Boxoffice MagazineRichard MoweAug 30, 2011
Just when many may have thought that Cold War thrillers had gone out of fashion, along comes one to reinvigorate the genre. Read full review
60
MovielineAlison WillmoreAug 30, 2011
The Debt shortchanges itself severely with the weight it gives the portion of its story set further in the past. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneSep 5, 2011
As with Spielberg's "Munich," there is an awkward, irresoluble tension between the movie's urge to thrill and the weighty pull of the historical obligations that it seeks to assume. How much, to be blunt, should we be enjoying ourselves? What do we owe to The Debt? Whatever the sum, it is more than the film itself, gloomy with unease, seems able to repay. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonSep 1, 2011
Any self-respecting period piece, historical drama or even caper movie - and The Debt is all three - balances issues of global significance with interpersonal drama. The problem here is that the personal eclipses the global. The stakes are too low. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 30, 2011
Director Madden vacillates between treating the issues and historical context of The Debt seriously, and as the story demands, as pure, heavy-handed pulp. The cast does what it can in the service of this assignment. But some jobs simply resist satisfying completion. Read full review
40
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesSep 1, 2011
A strong cast fails to rescue this ponderous Oscar bait. Read full review
40
Time OutKeith UhlichAug 30, 2011
Despite the chronological juggling, the film's stylistic debts (a Hitchcock flashback borrowed from Stage Fright, a Bertolucci-esque apartment sequence that could be titled Last Tango in Auschwitz) are simplistic to a fault; they lack the multifaceted suspense and sensuality typified by those directors at their best. Read full review
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