The Debt

"The truth stays in this room, between us"

In 1997 an Israeli journalist is at the launch of her new book. The story is based on her mother’s (Helen Mirren) first assignment as a Mossad agent in which she and two other agents captured the Nazi War Criminal “The Surgeon of Birkenau” (Jasper Christensen). The plot then shows what happened in East Berlin in 1965 and reveals there is much more to the story than the published account.

The film goes back and forth from 1965 to 1997 but stays in 1965 for the most part. We watch as Rachel Singer (Jessica Chastain) arrives in Berlin and takes up her role as a field agent along with David Peretz (Sam Worthington) and Stefan Gold (Marton Csokas). The trio successfully track down the old Doctor and capture him before a problem with his extraction means that they have to bring him to their apartment and find a new means of escape. The film is full of surprising twists and revelations which along with some great acting and terrific script make a dramatic thriller.

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

"However history remembers me before I was a President, it shall only remember a fraction of the truth..."

In 1818 a young boy by the name of Abraham Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) witnesses his mother’s murder and vows to get revenge on the man who took her life. In his late teens he finally plucks up the courage to enact his revenge but when he fires a pistol at the head of the assassin, the man simply gets back up and attacks the young Lincoln. The young man is saved by a strange man called Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper) who tells the future President about the existence of vampires and teaches him the art of killing them. Lincoln dedicates his life to the destruction of vampires but finds in later life that words and deeds outweigh the power of his axe and he eventually becomes a Lawyer and later President of the Union. During his Presidency the vampire rich South declares war on the North in the hope of creating a nation for vampires.

This film is a case of a title that is better than the movie. The idea behind it sounds great; that one of America’s most beloved Presidents was also secretly a Vampire Hunter, but the execution doesn’t live up to the premise. I’ve recently read books about the American Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination so probably know more than the average Brit about the President and this period of America’s history and there were nice details, incidents and characters taken from the period and Lincoln’s life that were included to give a bit of authenticity to the story. The truth, with the added inclusion of vampires could have created a really good film but alas it is not.

Kingdom of Heaven

"I once fought two days with an arrow through my testicle"

Ridley Scott directs an all star cast in a story about the Crusades and in particular the 12^th Century battles in which Muslims attempted to recapture the city of Jerusalem from the Christians. Balian (Orlando Bloom) is a blacksmith in rural France. A Knight (Liam Neeson) visits him and informs him that he is his father. After Balian kills a Priest who mocks his dead wife, Balian is given the chance to join the Crusades in the Middle East. While there he learns the ins and out of the Politics and Religion of the region and ends up in a prominent position in the defence of the Holy city of Jerusalem against a Muslim invasion.

This was the second Ridley Scott film I watched today having watched Alien for the first time this morning. Kingdom of Heaven is not anywhere near as good as that. The first thing I’ll say is that the sets looked sumptuous and were well dressed. The costume also looked good and the special effects were on the whole excellent, despite the odd dodgy shot. The acting was also generally quite good. Charisma vacuum Orlando Bloom was actually alright but still far from the screen presence that a role like this requires. He is joined by a fantastic cast which includes Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson, Michael Sheen, Ghassan Massoud and an almost unrecognisable Edward Norton. Had I not looked at the cast beforehand I honestly wouldn’t have known he was in the film. Marton Csokas was a bit of a let down on the acting front.