Adapted from “Ha-Hov,” an Israeli film, “The Debt” tells two interlocking stories. In the first, a trio of Mossad agents travel to East Berlin in 1966 to apprehend a doctor who conducted barbaric experiments at a Nazi concentration camp. In the second, set in 1997, they face the repercussions when the official account of their mission starts to unravel.
The red-faced, bristle-haired 62-year-old director decided to remake “Ha-Hov” because it reminded him of “a certain kind of film that I grew up on. A political thriller, or at least a thriller that was rooted in character, psychology and perhaps political circumstance — with some moral questions thrown in.”
Given the German doctor’s infamies, the moral questions in “The Debt” are profound. “The last thing I would want to do,” says Madden, “is take a subject that exists in the long shadow of the Holocaust and use it as a peg to hang a thumping good revenge thriller on.”
The filmmaker, naturally, doesn’t want to reveal much of the plot, in which a few crucial scenes are replayed in alternate ways. But he acknowledges that “there are a number of patterns within the story. . . . It engages the viewer in a kind of puzzle.”
The narrative puzzle also led to a casting one, since Madden had to find not one but two actors for each of the three Mossad agents. “I started with Helen. She’s the core of the story. The point of departure is Helen’s character at a very specific moment in her life.
“I knew her, obviously, and we had a strong working relationship. She’s always been a fearless actress. She’s not particularly worried about whether she lands on her feet or her face,” he says. “But her cinema career did not completely come into focus until she played ‘The Queen.’ At which point, I think she relaxed completely. And she was already a very relaxed actress.”
The director next turned to the younger version of Mirren’s character. Despite studio skepticism, he insisted on an unknown. Otherwise, he says, “I’m sure that would have become the issue: How this famous actress turned into Helen Mirren.”
He chose Jessica Chastain, who had recently filmed “Tree of Life” with maverick director Terence Malick.
The director then cast the two younger men, picking Martin Csokas and an actor who had also just filmed a movie that would later attract attention: “Avatar” star Sam Worthington. The roles of their older selves went to Ciaran Hinds and Tom Wilkinson.
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