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The film is based on a 2007 Israeli movie by the same name, and adapted by the writers of “Kick-Ass” and “X-Men: First Class” (Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman) with help from Peter Straughan who wrote the screenplay for “The Men Who Stare at Goats.” Their experience at adaptation shows, as “The Debt” is a beautifully crafted story blending events from East Berlin in the 1950s with Israel in the 1990s.

Like his previous films “Proof” and “Shakespeare in Love,” director John Madden’s latest features a powerful female in a male-dominated world (mathematics, 16th Century England, espionage), where being a woman is both an asset and liability. Rachel is the newest addition to the Mossad sleeper cell hunting Vogel, and her presence in their cramped apartment headquarters immediately adds tension. She is also perhaps the most important member of the group: she must visit Vogel’s women’s clinic, verify his identity and drug him. It’s a significant task for a first-time field agent and Jessica Chastain (who recently appeared in “The Help” and “Tree of Life,” which I haven’t seen) as the young Rachel conveys a delicate balance of vulnerable femininity and cunning agent – perfect for the character. As an older Rachel, Helen Mirren is significantly different from her “RED” ex-agent, less confident and snarky, more fragile, with a greater sense of duty. Tom Wilkinson and Marton Csokas as Stephan/young Stephan are both forceful and charming when it serves them, an ambitious, likable Mossad mission leader who quickly sours as the mission deteriorates. Sam Worthington as the young David gives a fine quiet performance, subdued and timid with brief explosions of anger. Most of his characters have been pretty emotionless, so it’s nice to see a more expressive side of him.

Jesper Christensen is not unlike his recent Bond villain as the sadistic Vogel, whose calm persona covers a quietly sinister monster. There’s a reason why the Mossad agents keep his mouth taped shut when they hold him in their cramped apartment: He drips venom with every word, and reminded me of Walter Slezak in Hitchcock’s “The Lifeboat.”

Madden again shows his brilliance as a director in “The Debt.” After a failed attempt to extract Vogel from Berlin, the agents are forced to keep him in their apartment, under watch, while waiting for new orders from Israel. Madden films the scenes in their tiny apartment to maximum claustrophobic effect, emphasizing its oppressively small size, and splicing the feeding and care taking of the bound Vogel with scenes of the agents sparring and Stephan banging out a tune on a piano. It’s a good scene showing the group’s nerves on edge, and illustrating how Vogel exploits it.

The film’s only problem is its ending, which pits elderly characters in a knock-down, drag-out fight to the death – something better left to their younger counterparts. In “RED,” Mirren kicks ass. Here, she just falls on it and flails about for a while. It undermines the seriousness of the conclusion. Even so, it’s worthy entertainment considering the performances of the leads, and storytelling ability of its director and writers.

Of course, our enemies do the best they can on the killing front as well, and at one point it was widely believed that the Soviets were engaged in training soldiers in psychic warfare. British journalist Jon Ronson stumbled across America’s response to those mental-murder programs and wrote about them extensively in his humorous nonfiction book “The Men Who Stare at Goats.” 

Now, with the help of screenwriter Peter Straughan, who has invented a streamlined story in which to connect the book’s hilarious and almost impossibly wild anecdotes, “Goats” has hit the nation’s movie screens. Fast-moving, funny, and supremely subversive entertainment of a kind that Hollywood rarely takes chances with anymore, it also arrives at a rich historical moment, as President Obama’s own decision on whether to surge or pull troops out of Afghanistan hangs in the imminent balance. 

In the film, Ewan McGregor heads off to the Mideast in the hopes of awakening the boring slumber of his life as reporter Bob Wilton in a small-city daily paper by crossing into Iraq and covering the war there. But all his efforts actually leave him stranded outside the country, until one night when he meets a man named Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), who claims he was part of an experiment program training for psychiatric warfare years before. 

The goal was to create a group of “warrior monks” called the New Earth Army, which would be able to read an enemy’s thoughts, walk through solid walls and  even kill goats by staring at them. The leader of this improbable mission was Bill Django, a former hippie turned military official who truly wanted to find a less deadly way to engage in battle and who is brought to vividly hilarious life by Jeff Bridges in a role akin to his lovably shaggy stoner in “The Big Lebowski.” 

Wilton and Cassady eventually discover that Django is being held, along with other former psychic soldiers, in a secret training camp run by renegade fellow psychic Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey). Wilton must ultimately figure out how to get out from between Django’s forces of oddball goodness and Hooper’s nefarious intentions. The result keeps the dialogue snappy and the twists coming fast, as Clooney’s producing partner Grant Heslov proves to be a steadily creative hand at the wheel of the film. 

The result is a film that enlightens as well as entertains, giving viewers a look at one of the strangest movements in American military history while making sure they have plenty to laugh about along the way. All the performances are expertly shaded at just the right level to avoid becoming over-the-top farce, and things move along at an exciting clip. 

Take a look at the track record of Clooney and Bridges, and it’ll be easy to surmise that the film takes a left-leaning slant on the events at hand. But enter with an open mind , people of all political persuasions will have a rowdy night at the movies while having plenty to talk about afterwards.