Set against the backdrop of an international finance deal with profound social implications, the film is an intense political drama which explores how far people will go to get what they want.
Toggling between the breathtaking Peruvian highlands and the busy clamor of Lima, "The Debt" places three very different lives on a collision course freighted with moral and financial complexity.
[Director] Elliott clearly cares about the exploitation of Latin American resources by rapacious foreign corporations, but his characters are one-dimensional mouthpieces for whatever point he wants to make in a given scene.
Despite its best efforts to be thought-provoking, the film is dramatically inert, slow and its revelations aren't all that politically illuminating, relying on coincidence and worn tropes to obfuscate its lack of ingenuity.
The result is well meaning, well shot (especially the rural scenes) and well acted (you can't go wrong with David Strathairn), but ultimately a dramatic disappointment.