BEFORE: Helen Mirren carries over from "Eye in the Sky", and it's the last time for her, unless I watch that "Nutcracker" movie at Christmas time. Hey, five in a row is not bad, I think the record for 2020 so far is only 7, and that's De Niro. Mark Strong is second with 6 appearances, so Dame Mirren is tied with Al Pacino for third place right now. Of course, it's still very early, I'm only about 1/3 of the way through this year that, quite honestly, can't end quickly enough. Without my movies to keep me focused each day, and give me something to look forward to tomorrow, I think I'd go quite bonkers.
THE PLOT: IN 1965, three Mossad agents cross into East Berlin to apprehend a notorious Nazi war criminal. Thirty years later, the secrets the Agents share come back to haunt them.
AFTER: Another good, twisty World War II-based suspense film tonight, which works fine for me, that's the 2nd film this month with Nazis in it, and I've got more coming up in a little over two weeks, which should synch up right with a certain date on the calendar. But it's also another one of those films that toggles between the present and the past - or I should say, between 1995 and 1965. We see one version of the past events at the start of the film - as one character reads from her daughter's new book, a novelized version of what happened in '65, and then later we flash back to the events as she remembers them, and we learn that there are some key differences between the story these agents told, and what really happened in East Berlin.
This has a bit of a jarring effect on the viewer, to be told one version of the story and then just when you think you know how the long flashback is going to end, we find ourselves in a different place. But I think that's the point, the three Israeli agents made a choice, and they told themselves they had to live with that choice, and not reveal the truth. But it's only later that they realize their choice had an impact beyond what they intended.
The choice to set the story in these particular years is no accident - in 1965 Berlin was still divided in to zones, East Berlin was the Soviet sector, and West Berlin had American, British and French sectors. And twenty years after World War II ended, I suppose it's still possible that there still might be a former Nazi hiding out there. For the later sequences, in 1995, that year is significant because it's 50 years after the war ended, and it's most probable that by then there might not be many still alive. So it kind of had to be set in this exact time-frame. These three Israelis entered the Soviet sector looking for Dieter Vogel, aka "The Surgeon of Birkenau", who might be working there as an obstetrician, with the goal of apprehending him and bringing him to Israel to stand trial for war crimes and experiments on Jews during the holocaust.
Tensions run high when two of the three agents need to pose as a married couple, only the close quartering and isolation needed for their cover threatens to get in the way. Rachel pretends to be David's wife, only finds herself in a relationship with Stefan. Then, as time wears on, her pretend feelings for David seem to take prominence over the relationship she's already got going on with Stefan. As people all over the world are finding out this month, relationships can change when people are forced to spend more time together - I just read about a slew of divorces that may result from people sheltering in place with their own spouses during the Covid-19 pandemic. I'm not sure that's true, could be just some sensationalist journalism, but I'll allow that it's certainly possible.
Here, however, is the greatest fault of the film, in my opinion. It's always a little bit dicey when you run a split timeline like this, and different actors need to be cast to play the younger versions of the characters. Or maybe they cast the young ones first in some cases, and have to find older actors to match. But this is the key, they have to match! As a viewer, I need to believe that the characters are the same, that the younger version of that character is going to age and turn into the older version someday. While anyone's appearance can change a lot in thirty years, it still needs to be believable on film, and certain facial features - the eyes, the shape of the face, the earlobes, they're going to stay somewhat the same, and this needs to be taken into consideration at the casting stage.
Now, I've got no problem with Rachel's character between the two timelines - with a similar hair color, I can believe that Jessica Chastain's Rachel will look like Helen Mirren's Rachel, thirty years later. But for the two men, David and Stefan, I'm just not seeing it. Young David, Sam Worthington, does not look anything like old David, played by Ciaran Hinds - and young Stefan, played by Marton Csokas, doesn't resemble Tom Wilkinson as old Stefan, not one bit. In fact, the facial features of Marton Csokas and Ciaran Hinds are somewhat similar, so now I'm wondering if they made a mistake in casting, and the two actors in the 1965 flashback were playing the wrong roles! Given the shapes of their faces, I'd also be more likely to believe that Sam Worthington and Tom Wilkinson were playing the same character, younger and older. So, what gives?
There may be other factors at work here, based on things like amount of screen time, number of lines, which actor gets higher billing, is more famous, etc. But at the end of the day, the two actors playing the same character just need to resemble each other, to some degree, and here they just don't. I was waiting for some kind of switcheroo, where when they came out of the mission, Stefan would pretend to be David and vice-versa, basically switching lives after their life-changing experience, but it didn't happen that way. When a mistake in the casting then interferes with the storyline, then we've got something of a problem. Don't believe me? Go Google some photos of Marton Csokas and Ciaran Hinds, and then you may agree with me that they SHOULD have been playing the same character. Now do the same with the other actors, and I think you'll see where I'm coming from. Casting them the other way, however, was just distracting.
Again, I don't know if this was a casting mistake, like someone accidentally assigned one pair of actors to the wrong roles, or perhaps the filmmakers just didn't care too much that the younger actors didn't resemble the older ones. Now, I'm not even sure which is the greater sin, but either way, it's wrong in my book.
Also starring Jessica Chastain (last seen in "X-Men: Dark Phoenix"), Ciaran Hinds (last seen in "Race to Witch Mountain"), Sam Worthington (last seen in "The Shack"), Tom Wilkinson (last seen in "A Good Woman"), Marton Csokas (last seen in "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House"), Jesper Christensen (last seen in "The Young Victoria"), Romi Aboulafia, Yonatan Uziel (last seen in "Munich"), Brigitte Kren, Istvan Göz, Morris Perry
RATING: 5 out of 10 Krav Mega moves
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