Movie Review - The Debt

The Debt

2010

Production Companies:  Miramax, Marv Films, Pioneer Pictures

This cold war spy story takes place in two time periods - 1965 and 1997.  Three Mossad agents are sent into East Berlin to retrieve the Nazi war criminal.  However, things do not go according to plan.  The details of which have been repressed but are now threatening to break into the light and bring the agents and their mission into a very public eye.

If you like spy thrillers you may like this one, it is beautifully filmed though a tad on the slow side with a story which isn't as strong as the acting.

The writers do a great job with interweaving past with the present, especially where the secrets are concerned.  Having Rachel's daughter publishing a book about her and the mission at the time when things are starting to unravel is a brilliant idea, though I don't think it's fully utilised and expanded upon, because when the truth is revealed it will make her daughter look inexperienced as an investigative reporter.  This would have added greater depth and better characterisation of Helen Mirren's Rachel; which it needed.  There was enough space within the story to accomplish this as there are scenes which are too drawn out.  The ending is predictable and feels like it's been tagged on to give the story a happier ending.  To me, it felt like a cop out and once again showed the differences between the Rachel characters.

Another drawback is the secret itself.  I for one cannot understand why they didn't tell the truth, to begin with.  That way they could have just got on with rectifying the situation.  It was this thought that through the rest of the film out of balance by making it feel weak and pointless.

It was the acting, especially from the 1965 cast, which carried the story and the film.  Chastain's Rachel is an intelligent and strong individual; this, however, is not the case with Mirren's Rachel who doesn't appear to have these characteristics.  To be honest, only Wilkinson's and Csokas' Stephen Gold could be the same person.  These differences in the main characters slightly detracted me from the movie.

As for the direction, this could have been tighter at times to create an exciting atmosphere when needed and slower at other times to build suspense.  Unfortunately, the director opts for a steady pace, which at times, is too slow and verges on boring.  The locations are great and give the feel of the period, as does the lighting,  Along with some nicely thought out camera shots, it adds strength and atmosphere to the film.

I'd recommend this to all lovers of spy thrillers, though if you're new to the genre I wouldn't start with this film; it's not the best of its kind and may put you off watching other better spy thrillers.  That said, it is worth at least one watch.

Book Review - Busy Body

Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body (2010)

Written By M.C. Beaton

Constable Press

6.5 / 10

Opening Sentence and First Paragraph -

Having found that her love for her ex-husband, James Lacey, had more or less disappeared, Agatha Raisin, middle-aged owner of a detective agency in the English Cotswolds, decided to hit another obsession on the head.

I'm a believer in the open sentence being one of the main ingredients of a story.  It's this section that should grab the reader and enthuse them to read on.  In this book, the above opening is pretty decent, it sets the scene, tells you some of Agatha's background and makes you wonder what her other obsession is.  Since I'm a newbie, not only to M C Beaton but also the Agatha Raisin series, this opening sentence set me up nicely for the unfolding story.

The story flows along at a steadily fast pace and the writing is never dull or boring.  For such a short book (only 244 pages), there's plenty going off, which for me slightly handicaps the story, because you have to loose other components to the tale; in this case characterisation.

There are a lot of incidental characters in the book and I know it would've been clogging to the narrative to give them all better characterisations, and some of them the reader would know if they had read the series from the start.  It would've been better had a few more of the important characters was filled out more.  Such as they were, there was no empathy created between myself and them so I didn't care about their outcome in the story.  Which is a shame as it would have made the story stronger.

This isn't really a whodunnit novel either as there are no clues for the reader to try and ascertain who the killer is; it's a step by step progress of Agatha Raisin and her detective team in their search.  That said, I did figure out who the killer was.  I accredit this to M C Beaton's writing style.  When you get to the scene where you meet the killer you just know they did it.

That said, these negatives are only small things, as there are a couple of twists that aren't deducible or guessable. There's also a murder which may be solved in later series books.

In conclusion, this is a well-written book, though it could have been a little more in depth to bring the reader more into the story.  At times, it seems a little over-stuffed, but it just stays on the right side of "too-much".  I did enjoy this book and read it through in just three sittings, though I'm not sure if I would read any of the other books in the series.

Movie Review - Second Chances

Second Chances

2010

The Cast

I'm not too sure what the writers, Angelique Palozzi & Francesca Palozzi, or the director, Jean-Claude Lord, were aiming for when they created this movie.  It's listed as a Crime, Mystery, Thriller but for the first half of the film, it fails on all three genre's and, at times, seems nothing more than a pompous and over-acted Soap Opera.  Even Melissa George's acting couldn't lift it out of the sickly sweet.  It's not until the second half of the movie that the story starts to get interesting - though I had been close to turning it off by then.

It really is a strange thing because EVERYTHING changes in the latter half; not only does the story pique your interest a little more, but the direction becomes tighter and more focused, giving you a better atmosphere and, very nearly, creating tension, and the acting becomes stronger and the character portrayals are more believable and not so "throw-away" as they previously were.

However, this doesn't stop the film from being poor.  There are sections in the story that could have been utilised better.  For example, when the detective tracks down the shop where a suspect hired a costume he is informed that the person hired two costumes, a police uniform and a clown outfit.  Later in the film, Melissa George, is at a party with her son and there are clowns.  Neither the director or the writers used this to create tension or build suspense.

Another big failure of the film was the over-used cliches.  The main one being the relationship between Melissa George's character, Kate Fischer, and Detective Lucas Kelly, played by Ryan Scott Greene.  They used to date each other in high-school (don't they always(?)) and after a heated "What went wrong?" argument, they end up in a passionate kiss, then on the stairs fighting to open the buttons on blouse and shirt, then in the bedroom...  Don't get me wrong, if I had the slightest chance to bed Melissa George I'd take it, but come on people let's get original, please!

So for the first half of the movie, I was bored, though not enough to turn it off; however, the Chromebook did come out.  Even though the second half improved considerably, the Chromebook stayed out, though I did look up a few more times.  So I'd only recommend this to Melissa George fans, of which I became one after I saw her in Triangle, and only if you can multitask, like surf the web, iron, etc...

I give this a "one chance" only 3.75 out of 10.

The Trailer