Day: December 4, 2011

The Debt is a remake of an Israeli movie made a few years before it. This is Americanized though, and therefore cooler. I haven’t done much into the kinda spy based thriller drama movies, so this is a good start. Especially because it isn’t probably known at all, at least not the major actors involved.

The Debt also has two main storylines that take place 30 years apart. So, except for the doctor, the three leads who are Israeli spies are played by two people each. But as I liked the 1960s portion of the movie a bit more, I will just link the younger ones.

Jessica Chastain, Marton Csokas, and Sam Worthington are sent to East Berlin in the mid-60s to capture a Nazi war criminal. This doctor, played by Jesper Christensen, is accused of being the “Surgeon of Birkenau” and doing a lot of bad experiments on patients there. Genetic tests, what ever. So their mission is to capture him, and bring him back to Israel so he can be tried. Noble goal indeed!

Given that this is the past, I assume all trials looked like this.

The girl goes undercover as someone needing advice on giving birth. Eventually they succeed in capturing the doctor, but due to complications, they are unable to safetly carry out part 2 of their plan to get him out of East Germany, and are forced to hold him capture. This begins a psychological like battle between the spies and the doctor, whom cannot be killed because it wouldn’t be fair.

Thirty years after these events, having lied about the events, the secrets that occurred may finally be coming up. They have to try and stop the truth from coming out to save face, and make sure Israel doesn’t look like it has bush league spies.

This plot outline is too vague to give the story justice, but it is defintely a well crafted story. The acting is very good, and hell, its a spy film that doesn’t rely on gadgets or people just being stronger than everyone else. Just seems like normally trained people, trying to make best of a hard situation. I think the ending personally was a bit of a letdown, but what can you do.

Definitely give this movie a shot if you are into that sort of stuff. It has a bunch of German subtitles in it as well, in case you are anti-german.

“Herr Doktor! Ich habe nicht sprochen die Aushwitz und blieberin.”

The Hangover, critically, was one of the higher rated comedies by critics for a long time. So much that people would continue to compare all new comedies to it and think the other comedies are “lame” if they are too similar. I even heard someone say that Horrible Bosses was too similar to it, just because it had three male leads. What?

So does that mean people will hate The Hangover Part II, if it is too similar to the Hangover, despite the fact that as a sequel it should be similar?

Yes.

In the Hangover, four guys go to celebrate in Las Vegas for a bachelors party, and wake up the next morning, can’t remember anything (damn secret druggings!), and have lost the groom. Two days before the wedding. They have to use clues to try and figure out what they did the night before, to hopefully find their friend, and deal with all the other problems they caused.

In the Hangover part II, five guys are in Thailand to meet the brides family, accidentally end up celebrating all night (damn secret druggings!), wake up the next morning, one guy is back at the hotel, the brother of the bride is lost. They have to use clues to try and figure out what they did the night before, to hopefully find their friend, and deal with all the other problems they caused.

Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifanakis return in their post hangover and confused state, and also features a return cameo of Ken Jeong (obviously!). Also, this introduces Mason Lee, as Teddy, the brother of the bride.

I definitely think a second “hangover” movie should have a similar plot to the first. I don’t want the same cast in the same roles doing a different type of adventure. That wouldn’t be “Hangover” based! People wouldn’t complain that Nightmare On Elm Street 2 has the same-ish plot as the first one. So it should be able to fit those standards. But what is it as funny as the first one?

No.

Although I did find it amusing, it was definitely not as good as the first. It had more penises, that is for sure, but what else would you expect with transsexuals? It also introduced a monkey, which takes the place of a baby I guess. I did like that Ed Helms took more of a lead from Bradley Cooper, especially by the end, even though his world was crashing down all around him (being the groom this time). I think the beginning was believable enough for his character too, avoiding a bachelor party (bachelor brunch!) so nothing bad happens. But Thailand is too crazy for them.

As another random note, I was mad to not see Liam Neeson in the movie. After all, Mel Gibson was booted from a cameo role due to his controversies, Liam brought in. But because of re shooting, they had to redo that role again as a different guy for the tattoo artist.

So yeah. Its an okay movie on its own. I don’t think you really need the first, but the first helps. It definitely wasn’t as good, too much of the plot focused on getting the codes to get Teddy, I thought. Took away from more potential laughs that they could have had in Thailand.