The Statement

STATEMENT - DVD Movie

Michael Caine's riveting performance is the best reason to see The Statement, a lopsided thriller with conspicuously noble intentions. In crafting a thematic counterpart to his Oscar®-winning script for The Pianist, screenwriter Ronald Harwood draws from another fact-based story set during World War II, adapting Brian Moore's captivating novel about an official French collaborator named Brossard (Caine) who executed seven Jews in 1944, under the Vichy regime of Nazi-occupied France, and eluded justice for decades thereafter. While a passionate French judge (Tilda Swinton) and army colonel (Jeremy Northam) pursue Brossard in 1992, director Norman Jewison smoothly executes a cat-and-mouse plot as Brossard hides in a series of right-wing Catholic sanctuaries. By introducing a conspiracy element not found in Moore's novel, Harwood and Jewison dilute an otherwise riveting story (based on the real-life war crimes of French Milice officer Paul Touvier), resulting in a contradictory portrayal of Caine's sympathetically penitent character. In a film that fails to clarify the maneuvering of its ultimate villains, it's a testament to Caine's skill that The Statement works as well as it does. Charlotte Rampling and the late Alan Bates appear in effective cameo roles. --Jeff Shannon