Operation Finale, rated PG-13
****

Operation Finale is a tense, well-acted film based on the true story of the 1960 top secret mission to capture leading Nazi figure Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The film is directed by Oscar nominee Chris Weitz (About a Boy), and written by first-time screenwriter Matthew Orton.  Orton thoroughly researched the story, and the film stays mostly to the story exactly as it happened. Weitz filmed the movie in Argentina in the same actual locations where the events took place.
As the Allies marched toward Berlin in the spring of 1945 it became apparent that the Third Reich would fall. Some of the Nazi leaders, including Hitler, committed suicide rather than being captured. Adolf Eichmann, played in this film by Oscar winner Ben Kingsley (Gandhi) was among those who did not. Eichmann, the architect of the Final Solution, the wiping out of the Jewish population which would result in the murder of six million Jews, was originally captured by Allied forces, but he escaped the prison camp, eventually landing in Argentina with his family in 1950.
Peter Malkin, played by Golden Globe winner Oscar Isaac (Show Me a Hero), is a member of Israel’s intelligence agency known as the Mossad. His job is to take out former Nazi leaders, but he has been known to make mistakes on missions, sometimes with deadly results. Malkin’s older sister and her young children were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Fifteen years after the war, we meet Sylvia Hermann, played by Haley Lu Richardson, a young woman living in Argentina. She was sent there from Germany as a child during the war to live with her uncle. What she doesn’t know, since she was raised as a Catholic, is that she is really a Jew. She begins dating Klaus Eichmann, played by Joe Alwyn, who takes her to a Nazi gathering. Over dinner, her blind father Lothar Hermann, played by five-time Golden Globe nominee Peter Strauss (Men Don’t Tell, Kane & Abel), becomes suspicious when Klaus tells him his last name. This eventually leads to the discovery that Adolf Eichmann is living as Ricardo Klement in Argentina with his wife and two children, working as a foreman at a Mercedes Benz factory.
Israel soon sends a Mossad intelligence team to Argentina to capture Eichmann and bring him back to Israel to stand trial. Peter Malkin is a part of that team. His former girlfriend Hanna, played by Mélanie Laurent (Inglorious Bastards), who has also made mistakes on similar missions like this, is recruited to be the doctor on the trip. (Note: this part of the film was fiction. There was a doctor on the team, but the doctor was Yonah Elian, a male).
When the Mossad arrive in Argentina, they find that there are police and government officials who are sympathetic to Eichmann. Argentina’s fascist-leaning government had created a safe haven for Nazi war criminals. According to the Argentinean government, Eichmann will have to agree in writing to his deportation. Can the team get Eichmann to sign the document before the mission is discovered?
The film centers on the relationship between the captor and prisoner, with Malkin trying to understand Eichmann as more than a monster. Both actors give excellent and perhaps Oscar worthy performances.
The musical score by Alexandre Desplat, was particularly effective, especially during an opening credits scene.  The entire cast is solid, including Lior Raz, who plays Isser Harel, the director of the Argentinian operation.
Themes include sacrifice, justice, family, and the horrors of the Holocaust.
Content concerns include adult language, and Holocaust war violence, often depicted in flashback dreams of Malkin.
Overall, Operation Finale is a tense, well-acted true story of the 1960 secret mission to capture leading Nazi figure Adolf Eichmann that I would highly recommend.