Tag: mossad

SHELTER – JFF 2018 Review

St. Louis Jewish Film Festival at Plaza Frontenac Cinema
Monday, June 4, at 7 pm
Israel • English, Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles
Director: Eran Riklis
Feature: 83 minutes 

The Israeli thriller SHELTER is a film that has been getting a lot of buzz in film circles as it make the rounds of international film festivals. Writer/director Eran Riklis’ drama is a mix of psychological and spy thriller mostly in English although the action takes place primarily at a Mossad safe house in Germany

Naomi (Neta Riskin) is a former Mossad agent who has been out of service for a couple of years. She is lured back by her former boss (Lior Ashkenazi) to take what she is told is a simple two-week assignment, guarding a female Lebanese informer in Germany while she heals from facial plastic surgery to give her a new identity. But the assignment becomes more complex than originally expected, and the women start discovering they have more in common than it at first appeared,

Lior Ashkenazi, who has been in several international hits the last few years, as Naomi’s boss sweet-talks her into coming back to work and reassures her the assignment is little more that “baby-sitting.” Naomi is not sure she wants to come back to work, still mourning the death of her husband, but her boss finally persuades her. Arriving at the apartment in Germany posing as a lady’s companion, she finds her new charge, Mona (Golshifteh Farahani) is beautiful but imperious, the daughter of a wealthy man, who does indeed rather expect Naomi to wait on her like a servant. No-nonsense Naomi is not having it and the two don’t hit it off. But as things start to unravel, a bond grows between the two women.

Riklis adds a lot of unsettling film noir-ish touches to ratchet up the suspense. The German safe house where Mona is being hidden in an apartment in an old German building, the kind that has winding narrow staircases and those old-fashioned elevators that look like cages. Further, there is a plaque in the street outside the building denoting that it was once the home of a Jewish family who were deported to a concentration camp. Neighbors and a shopkeeper nearby have a slightly sinister look to Naomi’s eye, and it does not help that her spoiled charge has a fatalistic view of her situation and is not too careful.

Meanwhile, the terrorists that Mona betrayed are indeed hot on her trail and have figured out she’s not in Lebanon. Uncertain how much she has already said to the Israelis, they are set on assassination – if they find her.

The spy thriller aspect is pretty good, with some nice turns. Much of the film’s emotional heart and drama depends a great deal on the chemistry between the two women. Both Riskin and Farahani do a nice job unspooling each woman’s complex character and tragic backgrounds. The actresses build a convincing bond between, drawing on shared experiences as women caught in political conflict.

SHELTER is a good, entertaining spy and psychological thriller with nice performances although not a film that offers fresh insights on the Israeli-Arab conflict.

 

THE DEBT (2010) – The Review

This movie re-enforces the old adage “what goes around comes around.” Or more specifically that it’s always easier to tell the truth than try to keep track of a lie. With John Madden’s (SHAKESPEAARE IN LOVE) new drama/thriller based on an Israeli film from 2007, three people must deal with a ghost form the past that returns to haunt them more than thirty years later. The question becomes whether they can continue  their story and keep the past buried.

The film begins in 1997 at the release party for a book that Sarah Gold has written about the capture of the notorious Nazi Dr. Dieter Vogel (a Dr. Mengale-type) by her mother Rachel Singer (Helen Mirren), father Stephan Gold (Tom Wilkinson), and David Peretz (Ciaran Hinds), all former Mossad agents. A recent tragedy causes the former married couple, Rachel and Stephan, to reflect on the true events that inspired the new book. We then return to East Berlin, 1966, where young Rachel ( Jessica Chastain ) meets with fellow agents Stephan (Marton Csokas) and David (Sam Worthington). Their mission is to capture Vogel, now posing as a gynecologist named Bernhardt, smuggle him into West Berlin, and ship him to Israel where he will stand trial for his war crimes. All three suffered great losses during World War II, and while training become enmeshed in a romantic triangle. After much preparation the day of the capture arrives. And, as they say, “Even the best laid plans…” Can they now retired agents keep their pledge to each other?

For the mid-section of the film set in 1966, THE DEBT is a tense, taut edge0of your-seat thriller that reminded me of another recent film about the Mossad, MUNICH. Chastain (who’s having quite a year with great roles in THE HELP an TREE OF LIFE) shows her chops as an action hero to great effect particularly in the scenes set in Bernhardt’s examining room. Worthington has an effecting, smoldering intensity as the emotionally wounded David. I was impressed by relative screen newcomer Csokas’s cynical, world-weary portrayal of Stephan. The scenes of them dashing through the Berlin streets and hiding at a train station are very suspenseful. My problem with the film is in the return to Israel 1997. Wilkinson and Mirren are in top form as usual, but the sequences of her returning to her spying days are fairly unbelievable (she was much more convincing in the much lighter recent action flick RED). The final scenes at a medical facilities seem laughably ludicrous compared to the earlier 1966 mission set pieces. I would enjoyed the film more if it just concerned that thirty year old tale of dedicated Nazi hunters. Two thirds of THE DEBT is a terrific, first class thriller. It’s a shame the other third isn’t as compelling.

Overall Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars