“Operation Finale”– Movie Review

This week, I attended a screening of the new historical drama, “Operation Finale”, starring Oscar Isaac and Ben Kingsley.

Synopsis

When Israeli agents are alerted to the whereabouts of a Nazi war criminal, can they bring him to trial or will he elude them?

Story

Upon the conclusion of World War II, many of the surviving Nazis were brought to trial at Nuremberg.  However, there were some key officers who somehow managed to escape that trial – one of them was Lieutenant Adolf Eichmann (Kingsley).  Eichmann was called “The Architect Of The Final Solution” and was considered one of the most brutal and dangerous of Hitler’s top officers.  In 1960, the Tel Aviv office of The Mossad is obtained reliable intelligence that many escaped Nazis fled to Argentina – and Eichmann is among them.  One of their top agents is then sent to verify the authenticity.

Once Eichmann’s existence is confirmed, The Mossad form an elite team that includes Peter Malkin (Isaac) – a man for whom this job is personal since he lost a family member to The Nazis.  For Malkin, this will be a different type of mission: instead of “Catch & Kill”, this one is “Catch & Extract”. The plan is this: the team will travel to Buenos Aires and locate Eichmann; after captured, they’ll spirit him out of Argentina and return him to Israel where The Knesset will put him on trial for his war crimes.  On its surface the plan sounds simple, but unanticipated obstacles occur which prevent their flawless execution.

First, getting access to Argentina won’t be easy because El Al doesn’t fly there, so the government concocts a justification to schedule flights.  Also, a nabbed Eichmann is tricky; an effort to sedate him goes awry and when reported missing, his Nazi colleagues delay the planned return flight. With Eichmann hidden in a safe-house until he is exfiltrated, Malkin convinces him to sign a document admitting his war crimes – a requirement by the airline in order to board the plane.  But when The Nazis are tipped off to Eichmann’s location, can the secret agents get him to Israel before he can be rescued?

Review

As stated in previous reviews of historically-based dramas, the problem with these movies generally tends to be that there is little suspense since it’s typically about a well-known event that many (if not most) people know how the story ends.  Refreshingly, this is not the case quite so much when it comes to “Operation Finale”. Although we know how the real-life story concluded, the way in which the filmmakers lay out how it got to that point is extremely gripping, almost making you wonder if you forgot history because you question whether or not the mission will be successful.

End of summer is an unusual time to release a film such as this; normally, you would expect a movie like “Operation Finale” to come out in early autumn.  In large part, this is due to the fact that it is a rather heavy drama rather than light-hearted fare. Also, it’s not exactly the type of motion picture that will motivate the teenagers (the main movie-goers these days) to the theaters; make no mistake about it, this is a picture for grown-ups, especially when you consider (unfortunately) that the youth of today are not getting a sufficient historical education when it comes to the events surrounding World War II. 

Although “Operation Finale” is recommended, it is with a small caveat.  About 95% of it is quite well done – but that last 5% is what almost ruins an otherwise good film.  Without giving away too much, the third act has a “false ending” – i.e., the audience thinks the story has concluded, but it continues for another 10-15 minutes.  This is a huge mistake because it plays with the psychology of the viewers, who are prepared to see the closing credits. Perhaps a better way to have handled this is to merely have provided a brief epilog summarizing subsequent incidents.  Ironically, “Operation Finale” does include an epilog prior to the credits – it’s just unfortunate the last 10 minutes was not included.

Metacritic Score