| The Statement | | Cast : | Michael Caine, Tilda Swinton, Alan Bates | | Director : | Norman Jewison | | Studio : | Columbia Tristar Hom | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | January 01, 2003 | | DVD Released Date : | October 05, 2004 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Original Language), English (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | March 01, 2005 | | Summary | Good idea, badly executed | Content
 | The idea for the story sounded great and I watched the movie with great expectations. It's very disappointing. The movie has a BBC TV detective series feel to it, with flat lighting, clumsy shots and antique props. While the Germans in the movie are speaking German, the French surprisingly all speak English with a British accent- and I am afraid also behave like it. While it might be better to settle on English rather than using fake French accents, the script does not give the star cast anything to work with. The characters are one dimensional: Michael Caine's war time criminal either pants, sobs or shoots someone, Tilda Swinton's judge chain smokes and barks at everyone. The movie is lengthy and does not build up any suspense. Plus the story does not convince why the police should finance the war criminal Brossard for 40 years rather than forget about him. I will. |
| Rating | | | Date | December 28, 2004 | | Summary | A political thriller that could have been better than it is | Content
| Unjustifiably slammed by most of the critics when it was released last year, Norman Jewison's The Statement, while having some problems, is still an eminently watchable political thriller. The movie does has some interesting things to say about the duplicity of the Catholic Church, but the problem is that it lacks any readily developed suspense, and the parade of British actors filling the roles of French characters ultimately distracts from the overall impact of the film.
The film starts out with a grainy, black and white flashback to World War 2 when the French were conspiring with the Nazi's to round up French Jews. Several men are viscously murdered by a firing squad. The film then switches to 1992 and follows the search for a Catholic zealot and former Vichy cop, Pierre Brossard (Michael Caine) who is now is wanted for these crimes against humanity. Brossard is mysteriously connected to a group of collaborationists anxious to keep their pasts in the shadows. Over the past forty years Brossard has come to depend on the kindness of strangers - in his case, a ring of right wing, anti-Semitic priests, abbots, bishops and cardinals in the Catholic Church. The church, which supported his wartime actions, has spent the past five decades providing him with places to hide, money and new identity papers so that he can move freely - to yet another monastery. They have also provided him with absolution.
But Brossard's actions have caught up with him and he is trying to escape from the clutches of the French authorities led by Anne Marie Livi (Tilda Swinton), a tough-minded, no nonsense investigative judge who needs to find Brossard in order to get to the bigwigs who have been supporting him all these years. Aiding Anne Marie is a dashing French military detective Col. Roux (Jeremy Northam - who is incidentally my favourite actor).
Brossard is a tired, conflicted but ruthless man who will not hesitate to kill with an assassin's glee, but he is plagued by catholic guilt and ill health. He can become a helpless mess at confession and absolutely melt in compliance when talking to his former commander (Frank Finley). Caine does a fine job at conveying Brossard's mixture of desperation and evil - there's one particular scene when he hides out at his wife's (Charlotte Rampling) apartment and maliciously threatens her dog. He is haunted by the murders he has committed and demands absolution from those whose secrets he protects. In his eyes, the murders are justified, and he talks to God with so much insistence that he begins to take on an almost saint-like aura.
The plot takes lots of somewhat murky twists as the viewer is left trying to figure out who is actually after Brossard besides the French police. There are lots of fervent, zealous but vague accusations against the Catholic Church as each monastery across France takes it in turns to hide him. All performers are good, especially Swinton who has a steely cold manner, and is unshakeable in the face of threats from her powerful ministerial uncle (played by Alan Bates). Northam, of course, is always a pleasure to watch and brings his usual dashing charm to the role.
More a character study on guilt and redemption than a sharp, crisp political thriller, The Statement is worth watching for the stunning French locales and Caine's strong, conflicted and nuanced performance as Brossard. Mike Leonard December 04.
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| Rating | | | Date | September 01, 2004 | | Summary | Caine does ambiguity well | Content
| Although his films aren't always artistic successes, Michael Caine is one of my favorite actors, and at his best when his character is cheekily likable, e.g. in THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING (1975), SLEUTH (1972), SECONDHAND LIONS (2003). Rarely, he plays someone hateful, the most recent coming to mind being SHINER (2000). Here, in THE STATEMENT, his on-screen persona is oddly ambiguous, and it's left to supporting characters to provide the plot's protagonists.
It's June 1942, and a young Vichy French police officer, Pierre Brossard, supervises the round-up and execution of seven Jews by a contingent of German soldiers. After the war, he's charged with murder and collaboration with the enemy, but he escapes from prison, apparently aided by former superiors in the police establishment. Now, it's 1992, and Brossard (Michael Caine) lives in constant fear of exposure. A fervent Catholic, he skulks from French monastery to monastery, wherein he finds refuge with the help of sympathetic abbots and Church officials. A retired, former police official provides regular payments of money for frugal, day-to-day living. Now, Brossard is apparently being pursued by Jewish activists bent on his assassination. And if he hasn't worries enough, the French Justice Ministry has assigned a judge, Annemarie Livi (Tilda Swinton), and a police investigator, Colonel Roux (Jeremy Northam), to track Pierre down and take him into custody charged with war crimes. Are the two events related?
Pierre's wartime atrocity and his cold-hearted willingness to protect himself at any cost in the present are unlikely to endear him to the audience. On the other hand, the nature of the conspiracy against him by sinister forces, his failing health, and his sincere, if somewhat pathetic, religiousness render him an individual of some ambiguity. In the end, while Livi and Roux are the characters the viewer will naturally root for, Brossard will attract some small amount of sympathy because, perhaps, it's the popular Michael Caine in the role.
For me, the biggest problem with this otherwise reasonably intelligent film is the casting. Caine's Cockney British accent is never entirely submerged, and the other main roles have gone to Brits, most obviously Northam and Swinton. This is, after all, supposed to be France, but it might as well have been rural Hampshire! And it's never made clear why both the Church and powerful members of the government found it necessary or desirable to protect such a low-level Vichy functionary for so long anyway. Some conspiracies play better as fiction, and the Church is an ever-popular villain, especially if the Jesuits or a rogue cardinal or two are involved.
THE STATEMENT justly rates three stars, but I'm bumping it up a notch solely for Caine's performance (despite the accent). Northam and Swinton are also both effective.
One of the DVD's special features is an interview with Michael, in which he reveals that he was attracted to the Brossard role simply because he's rarely asked to play an unpleasant character not softened by his trademark cheeky humor. (I guess he forgot about SHINER!) |
| Rating | | | Date | August 18, 2004 | | Summary | Lower Your Expectations... | Content
| ...and you will find that it is enjoyable. This is an interesting plot, fine acting, fine script, but there are some flaws.
The casting was not suitable. Though Caine and Rampling are two of my favorite actors, I did not find them suitable for these roles. The movie was very British, and it is supposed to be French. I know that I am a hypocrite, since I enjoyed "The Pianist," which did not have many Polish actors, but for some reason, this one bothered me some. I guess it is because the characters look, think, and act very British...it detracted from the film a bit.
This is worth watching, though, as it is a sensitive tribute to the French Jews who were massacred during the German occupation. The story is intriguing, and overall comes off as a solid political thriller. Just don't pump yourself up for it, only to be let down.
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| Rating | | | Date | July 26, 2004 | | Summary | A Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. | Content
| _The Statement_ is an odd political movie set in France that leaves one strangely sympathetic for the main character, an ex-Nazi, who is brutally hunted down like a dog by his former compatriots in the government. The movie sets a collection of right wing priests within the Catholic church ("the Chevaliers", probably supposed to be reminiscent of the real organization Opus Dei, so much decried by liberals) against the left wing forces represented by a female judge and her colonel friend, set on a mission to prosecute the ex-Nazi. Apparently for forty years, this individual has lived in hiding, moving from monastery to monastery seeking asylum from those who would hunt him down. He appears to be genuinely repentant, seems to have developed a strong sense of personal faith, and as one of his priest friends is to note in the movie, he may have joined up with the Vichy regime in France in an attempt to oppose the "antichrist of communism". By the time he has been found out, nothing more remains of him than a doddering old man, prone to heart palpitations. The rest of the movie consists of a rather perverse chase, involving one killing after another, in which the old man is made to run from priest to priest until eventually he runs out of options and is shot down dead by his former Nazi associates. |
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