Movies- Sort of Double Feature

[nonionay]

I watched The Debt Thursday night. I liked it a lot, though some of the other people in the theatre felt "meh". As The Stranger said in their review, "We're used to seeing secret agents onscreen as quasi superheroes who rarely fail, and the contrast is unique if not exactly inspiring." I actually totally disagree with that statement.
It opens in 1997, with three retired secret agents who once were sent to East Berlin in the 60s to kidnap a Nazi doctor in hiding. It focuses on Rachel, the woman of the group, played by Helen Mirren as her older self, and Jessica Chastain as the younger. Both of them did a wonderful job portraying the character, and I had a lovely image of the two actresses hanging out together in real life, working together to create Rachel and the physical tics that reveal her vulnerability and tie her character together over the years.

Much of the movie flashes back to the mission in the 60s, and I really thought they did the non-linear narrative well. Maybe I liked this movie so much because it hit a lot of my buttons like non-linear narratives, and people realistically haunted by their past. The movie even had a love triangle that didn't want me to claw my eyes out!
I'm not going to go too much into plot details, because I really loved getting each moment of this movie fresh and unspoiled. But I will say that I was horrified by some of the things Rachel had to put herself through as part of this undercover mission. She's played with delicacy and both physical and emotional vulnerability, but at the same time, she never retreats from duty or danger, and there is absolutely no question as to her badassery.

I watched Red last night because I thought it would make an interesting contrast, and indeed it did. The Debt shows secret agents at their most human, and Red shows them at their most cartoonish*, which is of course the point, and it's a fun movie, but having watched The Debt, I'm like, "damn these people are sociopaths."

*Maybe not most cartoonish, since my favorite part of the movie is when Helen Mirren's character swaps out her heels for combat boots.

Comments

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Red was a fun movie, but yeah, they're all nuts. I think that ended up being one of the main points of the movie, if possibly an unintentional one: You don't make it through a career doing that sort of stuff all the way to retirement age without seriously dehumanizing yourself.

I'd really like to see a remake of Red with Cooper as the viewpoint character instead of Frank. I think there's a pretty cool story in there as well.

[criada.livejournal.com]

Definitely. An argument could be made that Frank Moses was reading romance novels either because he has a sensitive side and wants to be able to empathize with Sarah as one human to another, or because he is incapable of any form of empathy and needs a script to work from. One of the good points of the writing in both films is that they leave these points open for interpretation and debate.
And I agree that a version from Cooper's pov would be fascinating. What sort of mental gymnastics are necessary to simultaneously live as good family man, and cold-blooded assassin? The movie certainly implies that one can't juggle the two forever, and that something has to drop.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Not just that, but think how this conspiracy and the actions of Frank Moses and company look from Cooper's point of view. We'd get a story about a faithful agent hunting down a bunch of retired agents who went rogue for no apparent reason, trying to figure out what the hell's going on, and only at the end does he get the twist that he's actually working for the bad guys and the ones who have been presented as the villains are actually the heroes.

[criada.livejournal.com]

That and the fact that he'd have to be questioning his own unquestioning nature. After all, he asked what they were after the old folks for, and when his boss didn't even feed him a lie--just refused to answer his question--he kept going anyway. Yeah, surely he had some kind of rationalization going that kept him from the self-realization that he's a cold-blooded sheep.

Karl Urban did a good job with that part, though I did keep snickering because the only other thing I've seen him in was Star Trek, playing Dr McCoy. :-)

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Some great self-exploration bits, a nasty twist, there's lots of great potential there.

And didn't you see TLotR? He was Eomer in the second and third Movies. He just looks so different with that much hair ;)

[criada.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, you're right! I never would have noticed without it pointed out to me. :-)

[westrider.livejournal.com]

I had to have it pointed out to me as well. I call that a good job all 'round when the acting, costuming, and makeup can change someone up that much.