We all know the story -- even peripherally -- of Adolf Eichmann, one of the Nazi brains behind the "Final Solution," the Holocaust. We know that he escaped Europe and lived for a decade in Argentina under a false identity. We know that Israeli intelligence agents tracked him down, captured him, and returned him to face trial before sentencing him to death. We know, too, that his name is synonymous with the "banality of evil" and that "little Eichmanns" are the sort of sycophantic, mindless paper pushers and bureaucratic desk workers who never get their own hands dirty but whose activities cause great harm to others.
It would follow, as we know the basic story and characters, that a cinematic depiction of these events and characters might be one of those great war thrillers or revenge dramas that sweep awards and educate while they provoke and honor. Operation Finale, while serviceable and highly entertaining, falls short of such expectations for many reasons. Though a pretty amazing team of artists hide behind the curtain -- to say nothing of the ones on screen -- there's just something that didn't quite work on the grand, epic scale of (for example) Munich or Zero Dark Thirty.
Which is not necessarily a bad thing. I don't think Operation Finale even wants to be considered a "great film." It's almost a chamber piece, revolving around its two main characters as they intellectually spar during Eichmann's captivity. The great pleasure of the film lies with these characters and the actors who portray them. Ben Kingsley is chilling as Eichmann, at once silly and conceited yet calculating and manipulative. He seems to have no remorse for his crimes, and endlessly seeks justification for his own existence, about which he has apparently no delusions. He knows he's just an animal, and though brief insights into his emotional state occasionally flash through his stony visage, his existence seems based on instinctual tasks like eating, shitting, and finding comfort.
Oscar Isaac carries the film as his primary captor, Peter Malkin, who struggles to keep his mission professional but nevertheless succeeds where his peers fail. He crosses boundaries in his efforts to get Eichmann to comply, alienating his team, but as the story's end attests, Malkin apparently knew exactly what he was doing the whole time. His beauty in no way detracts from the proceedings, though it does distract on occasion; his greatest contribution to the character, however, is in his dedication to the little moments of silence as he contemplates the horrifically complex ethics of the mission.
With a team including Javier Aguirresarobe and Alexandre Desplat, Operation Finale had great resources and guidance. While director Chris Weitz may have been ill-prepared for a postwar espionage thriller with timely and important themes, there's not a clear reason why this flick isn't a new staple in the WWII canon. Perhaps we can blame the story itself: not really a war movie, it flips constantly between feeling like a thriller or drama or history. How do we read it? How did the director read it? It's not an easy question to answer, made all the more difficult in the film's repeated tonal shifting; I love breaking the mold of genre and experimenting with new art forms, but it's important too to have a sense of purpose and intent and, it's true, direction. Its attention to detail and fabulous nuance in ethical dilemma make Finale engaging if not quite thrilling, and even got me to forget (briefly) how the story would end.
P.S.: Keep your eyes peeled for Simon Russell Beale in a surprising single-scene role as David Ben-Gurion, blessing Malkin's team before they depart Israel.
IMDb: Operation Finale
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