Occasionally, inglorious bastards turn out to be little more than lying bastards. Such is the case in The Debt, a 2007 Israeli film directed by Assaf Bernstein that inspired the forthcoming remake with Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson. In Bernstein’s film, a trio of young Mossad agents is sent to assassinate an old Nazi war criminal, a twisted doctor known as the Surgeon of Birkenau. Told in flashbacks, the mission looks like a typically brutal espionage flick—until it turns out our heroes botched the mission, let their target slip away, and told their bosses the Nazi committed suicide. Rather than let the truth emerge, the commandos decide to finally make good on their original assignment. Now pushing 70 and out of the spy game, they don’t find hunting down evildoers as easy as it used to be. But watching elderly people take part in combat is bizarrely entertaining.

The film shows at 8 p.m. at the Avalon Theatre, 5612 Connecticut Ave. NW. $11.