The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Dynamic duel
Kingsley, Isaac combined for riveting scenes in solid post-Holocaust drama ‘Operation Finale’
With “Operation Finale,” director Chris Weitz turns loose terrific actors Oscar Isaac and Ben Kingsley to go toe-to-toe with each other against the backdrop of a fascinating slice of history, and the results are highly compelling. ¶ “Operation Finale,” penned by Matthew Orton, dramatizes the story of how operatives from Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency captured former Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann and brought him back to their country to stand trial.
Commonly referred to as “the architect of the Holocaust,” Eichmann had been charged with inventing and implementing the mechanics for the sending of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps.
After the war, like thousands of Nazis, he fled to South America and, like more than half of them, settled in Argentina.
In “Operation Finale,” Eichmann (Kingsley) is living as Ricardo Klement in early 1960s Argentina, working as a foreman at a Mercedes-Benz plant. He lives with his wife, Vera (Greta Scacchi), and his son, Klaus Eichmann (Joe Alwyn), pretending to be the young man’s uncle.
Klaus takes an interest in a young woman, Sylvia Hermann (Haley Lu Richardson), not realizing she is Jewish. Sylvia, on the other hand, doesn’t know Klaus is the son of a wanted war criminal or that he holds antisemitic views himself. That relationship soon leads to some interest in the elder Klement.
When that interest reaches the headquarters of the Mossad in Israel, a higher-up largely blows off a man who brings in the tip, complaining of limited resources and the like. However, an agent, Rafi (Nick Kroll), asks his boss to consider for a moment that this Klement really is Eichmann.
“Can you imagine the headache when (the tipster) tells the world we wouldn’t spend our resources on the architect of the Final Solution?
Another agent, the sometimes-hotheaded Peter Malkin (Isaac) wants to be involved in the case early, but someone else initially is sent to Buenos Aires to investigate. (Rafi not so subtly suggests to Peter the delicate situation called for a bit more emotional balance than the latter tends to possess.)
Soon, though, Peter, Rafi and others — including Peter’s ex-girlfriend, Hanna (Melanie Laurent), a doctor who will be responsible for medicating Eichmann for travel — comprise a team charged with bringing Eichmann back to stand trial. While Peter and others would love nothing more than to put a bullet between their target’s eyes, it is deemed most important he be made to answer publicly for the crimes of the Third Reich.
“For the sake of our people,” says Israeli Prime Minister Ben Gurion (Simon Russell Beale) to the group before they depart for Argentina, “I beg you: Do not fail.”
Initially, the challenge is to capture Eichmann quietly, but the real obstacle follows. Due to a complication that makes leaving Argentina with Eichmann difficult, the team now requires a certain level of cooperation from its captive — a tall order indeed.
First, the member of the team designated as the interrogator, Zvi (Michael Aronov), tries to strongarm Eichmann.
“You have no interest in what I have to say,” Eichmann tells him, “unless it confirms what you think you already know.”
Soon enough, Peter decides it is his turn, which leads to several scenes being shared between Kingsley (“Gandhi,” “Schindler’s List”) and Isaac (“Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” “Ex Machina”). Peter tries to befriend Eichmann to get what he needs, and Eichmann is largely content to play along. What does he want, though?
They’re engrossing, these tête-à-têtes, in the hands of the two actors. With all his talent, Kingsley is able to make Eichmann at least somewhat sympathetic, and Isaac plays it so you do not necessarily know whether Peter is, in fact, starting to feel a kindness toward Eichmann or whether it is all a ruse.
Working from the solid script from newcomer Orton — while some moments feel conjured for dramatic purposes, they’re never so unbelievable as to distract from the history being revisited — director Chris Weitz (“About a Boy”) has a laudable vision for “Operation Finale” from beginning to end. The most impressive feat of his career may still be having made a halfway decent movie out of one of the “Twilight” novels, 2009’s “New Moon,” but Weitz deserves credit for shaping a drama here that ranges from good to high-level.
Although it takes place years later, “Operation: Finale” is another film that revisits the horrors of the Holocaust and, like others before it, does so emotionally and thoughtfully.
We probably can never have too many.