I hate to see a film snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (and hate having to say it), but John Madden's "The Debt" is a lamentable case in point: It is three-fourths of a brilliant spy thriller, cruelly sabotaged -- like its heroes' mission -- by a botched endgame.
This isn't Helen Mirren's fault, nor that of Tom Wilkinson or Ciaran Hinds. They play Rachel, Stephan and David, three retired Mossad agents who were sent to East Berlin in 1966 to find and kidnap Nazi war criminal Dieter Vogel -- the notorious "Surgeon of Birkenau" -- and bring him back to Israel for trial.
By 1997, when "The Debt" opens, the trio has long been revered by their countrymen for the mission's heroic success. Rachel and Stephan were married and divorced in the interim, but their adoring daughter has just written a best-selling book celebrating her parents' exploits.
So why does Rachel look so sour, and Stephan so dour, about the new shower of adulation?