Mossad agents Rachel Singer (Jessica Chastain), David Peretz (Sam Worthington), and Stephan Gold (Marton Csokas) train for their mission in “The Debt.”

One pretty, young Rachel Singer (Jessica Chastain) living in 1966 East Berlin visits a doctor in hopes of discovering why she cannot conceive. This isn’t her first visit, and she remembers nervously fiddling with her silver necklace the last time she looked upon the kindly, paternal face of the gynecologist. So much rides on this appointment—more than even the doctor himself knows. A swift kick, a needle plunged into a throat, and the doctor—Dieter Vogel, Nazi war criminal (Jesper Christensen)—crashes to the floor in purple-faced glory. Singer summons an ambulance, a decoy driven by her two fellow Mossad agents, which will take the “surgeon of Birkenau” to Israel to stand trial for his crimes.

As is evident from scenes like these, “The Debt” is a stark departure from director John Madden’s well-known lighter films such as “Shakespeare in Love” and “Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown.”  The dark, taut film opens in 1997 Tel Aviv, where an older Rachel Singer (Helen Mirren) has gained acclaim for her role in the 1966 mission and in assassinating Vogel as he tried to escape while the agents waited for an opportunity to transport him out of the German Democratic Republic.  However, the Singer of 1997—along with her mission compatriots David Peretz (Ciáran Hinds) and Stephan Gold (Tom Wilkinson)—clearly bears the signs of emotional and physical distress. Singer’s cheek is marred with a hook-shaped scar from Vogel’s savage escape attempt, Gold is wheelchair-bound from a later encounter with a car bomb, and Peretz abruptly commits suicide by throwing himself in front of an oncoming truck not ten minutes into the film. Viewers are left to wonder: what really happened all those years ago to these three ostensible heroes? As the “The Debt” explores this very question in flashback, the suspense only heightens, and the film proves itself to be an aesthetically slick thriller with plot and performance that live up to the movie’s premise.

“The Debt” is first and foremost an action film. However, it deftly incorporates elements of other genres, and is thus partly psychological thriller, black comedy, gruesome horror, historical drama, and unrequited romance. Jesper Christensen as Vogel contributes much of the film’s darkness, crafting a morbidly captivating antagonist who simultaneously embraces and brushes away his Nazi identity. His crackling blue gaze unnerves the three young agents who capture him, evoking nightmares in Singer, cruelty in the aggressive Gold (Marton Csokas), and vengeful bloodlust in the otherwise reserved Peretz (Sam Worthington). When Vogel spits in the face of Peretz and goads him with the riposte “you Jews never knew how to kill, only how to die,” we witness a rare instance of authentic, unadorned cinematic villainy.

The environment of the film also contributes to its compelling claustrophobia. Much of the movie takes place in the East Berlin apartment where the agents detain Vogel while holding out for extraction. As the wait drags on, their apartment becomes a reflection of their increasingly unstable psyches, with water dripping from the dilapidated ceiling and cockroaches crawling around madly in the sink.

While these psychological horror aspects of “The Debt” comprise its greatest strength, it is ironically the film’s romantic element that comprises its weakness, despite Madden’s prior success in this area, most notably with “Shakespeare in Love.” While Singer is supposed to be in love with Peretz, at least as telegraphed by the film’s screenplay, Worthington projects such an emotionally closed-off character that it’s difficult to be sympathetic to his feelings when Singer ends up pairing off with the more assertive Gold.

Fortunately, the film doesn’t need romance to enhance its pulse-pounding plot, and well-placed dark humor provides brief respites from the constant mental angst of the agents. Whether it is Gold plinking away at the apartment’s piano, bitterly singing “Deutschland über Alles” in front of Vogel, or the trio talking wistfully about their life goals in a German bar, “The Debt” is careful to balance plot with personality, and never to overwhelm the viewer with action or revelation except when absolutely necessary.

Overall, “The Debt” wears many hats, and to describe it merely as an “action thriller” would be an injustice. Each prop, setting, and facial expression is mirrored in another part of the film and not a minute is wasted on superfluous fighting or fiery explosions. When an item is featured, it returns ten minutes or even an hour later with deeper meaning, an exquisite narrative effect that rewards multiple viewings. And ultimately, it is a testament to the tight writing of “The Debt” that anything more about its plot or the true nature of the three agents’ personal “debt” is best said by the film itself.

—Staff writer Christine A. Hurd can be reached at churd@college.harvard.edu.