Saturday night, along with a friend, I watched 2018’s historical drama Operation Finale a dramatization about the covert mission to capture Adolf Eichmann, the man principally for the design, implementation, and operation of the NAZI extermination camps. Let us be absolutely fucking clear on one point, Eichmann is not solely responsible for the Holocaust, he contributed his skills, talent, and abilities to make the systemic murder ‘efficient’ but the entire rotten NAZI system from the top down was responsible.

Not covered in the film is that Eichmann was captured by the Allies but escaped and after surviving on the run for a number of years in occupied Germany, slipped out of the continent fleeing to Argentina with his wife and family.

Operation Finale focuses on Mossad agent Peter Malkin (Oscar Isaac, who was also a producer on the production) whose reputation is less than sterling when he caused a low-level NAZI to be executed in the field after misidentifying him as Eichmann. When Eichmann (Ben Kingsley) is discovered in Argentina because his son Klaus has an unlikely encounter with a holocaust survivor, Israel authorizes a covert mission to verify, capture, and extract Eichmann for trail. The team infiltrates Argentina and despite tensions about brining Eichmann back safely for trail versus extra-judicially executing him, they capture Eichmann only to discover that their plan route out has been delayed by ten days and now must keep him confined as local NAZIs with assistance of the authorities search for Eichmann.

The film never found either the box office or critical love that I think it deserves. The script is tight remaining credible in its depiction of spy craft and finds tension both the dangerous situation the agents work in and the emotionally charges air between captor and captive never losing its focus on Peter and his haunted visions of people lost in the Holocaust. The filmmaking is restrained without overly showing camera moves or cinematography surefooted in its character-based approach. The only production element that nagged at me while viewing the movie was the use of 75 yar old Ben Kingsley as Adolf Eichmann who was 51 at the time of his capture, make-up, and a light digital touch during WWII flashback attempt to maintain the illusion but are never fully convincing.

That said Operation Finale is a damn fine film and well worth the investment of two hour.

Operation Finale is currently streaming on Netflix.