Crimes contre l'humanité

"The Statement" deserves far better ratings than critics have given it. In the first place, it's NOT about an ex-Nazi in flight. It's about a French collaborator, the Vichy Government, France's failure to confront the role its officials -- some still in power -- played in the Holocaust, and the efforts of right wingers in the Catholic Church to shelter the collaborator. Michael Caine is superb in the leading role, and Tilda Swinton and Jeremy Northam are excellent as the judge and army colonel who are trying to bring him to justice while those who formerly hid him seek to execute him, blaming a non-existent group of Jewish vigilantes. The supporting cast, which includes the wonderful Charlotte Rampling in a minor role as the collaborator's undivorced wife, is also quite good. I don't see how anyone can complain that this movie "drags." While there are legitimate criticisms that could be made about unexplained motives, the action moves at the appropriate pace given the complexity of the story it is telling.

In looking through the other comments here and listening to responses as I left the theater after watching 'The Statement,' I've noticed a lot of criticism about the use of English actors using English accents in a movie set in France.

I won't venture to discuss the merit of this choice, but I wanted to point out, in case anyone is that interested, that this is an old stage tradition. The same thing came up when 'Enemy at the Gates' came out, where English actors played Russian characters without affecting Russian accents. It's not uncommon to assign, across the board, English actors/accents to the linguistic majority of a production. I don't know if this stems from the historical preeminence of the London stage or because English accents are thought to be less problematic for American audiences or what, but I do know that this is something that happens quite often and originated in live theatre.

Pierre (Michael Caine) is a Nazi collaborator who has been in hiding for years. He was going to be executed for his deeds but had help escaping decades ago. Now, a judge and colonel are looking for him....as well as some Nazi hunters. But there are two things standing in their way...Pierre is a pretty deadly man and keeps killing Nazi hunters AND Pierre is still getting help from both members of the Catholic church AND government officials. Can they capture the man? And, can the judge and colonel get him to tell them WHO has been helping him?

Although Michael Caine is the star and he's good in the film, he's actually NOT featured all that prominently in the movie. Instead, it shows the various folks coming after him and explaining why...why folks would help a monster like him. Overall, it's a very interesting movie....with a tory that is quite satsifying. One complaint, however, is the lack of French actors in the film...and everyone is supposed to be French. Another is that the film is supposed to be set in the present day (2003) but I think it would have worked better having been set in the 1960s-80s. It's just hard to imagine a man as old a Pierre being such a tough character who's able to kill various Nazi hunters...it just didn't seem realistic as the crimes he committed occurred in 1944...and that would make his character about 80 (more or less) and I cannot imagine any 80 year-old being that dangerous when cornered.

I rated this film a 7/10 - with some mixed feelings, because in many ways it was a downbeat film without any kind of neat "message" that would make me feel "a better person" for having seen it. But on second thought I realized that the finished film rather neatly reflects the moral complexity of Brian Moore's novel which it is based upon - and which Ronald Harwood's screenplay follows remarkably closely.

Brian Moore is one of my favorite late 20th century authors, whose work has provided the basis for several other memorable films, most notably "Black Robe." He writes in a Graham Greene-esque mode, his characters often anguished or guilty Catholics or ex-Catholics who struggle to live morally in a degraded and corrupt world. Moore himself appears to have known much about divided loyalties and twentieth century alienation. Although identified as a Canadian author, Moore was born in Ulster - and actually lived most of his later life in California and the South of France. He was clearly fascinated by questions of faith, of good and evil - and he boldly tackled these themes in "The Statement."

In France in the late 1980s and early 1990s there were several prominent cases of Vichy-era collaborators who were belatedly brought to justice by the French court system. Moore was clearly fascinated by the way in which leading members of the French governmental and bureaucratic system continued to hide unpleasant truths about their own pasts - and by the role of the Catholic Church in France in providing refuge and assistance to some individuals who had been involved in the persecution and round-up of Jews.

Michael Caine deserves a great deal of credit for taking on the role of a reprehensible character who nonetheless retains his full humanity. There's never any question in the film about his guilt - he clearly took part in the brutal murder of Jews during wartime. (He's also quite mean to dogs.) And yet he is not without a sympathetic side. It's clear that he's manipulative, but it's also easy to see why many intelligent and devout people of faith would be willing to assist him in his attempt to live "underground" hiding from justice. Caine isn't a caricatured film villain - not like Ralph Fiennes in "Schindler's List" or John Malkovich in "Ripley's Game." But in a real sense, it's all the more disturbing that he seems like "just another innocuous old man."

It was disappointing to me to see that fine performers Jeremy Northam and Tilda Swinton with so little to do in the film - other than looking bewildered as Caine's character continues to elude their grasp. On the other hand, it is quite enjoyable to watch their flirtatious glances with one another. There were many nice touches in the film showing the pleasures of French life - gourmet business lunches, for example, and the beautiful scenery of Provence. Even the supposedly seedy cafes look like they belong in a tourist brochure.

Michael Caine carries "The Statement" on his back. In spite of an elegant cast, without him as the central character, this convoluted mess of a film wouldn't be worth watching. Telling of an aging French-Nazi war criminal who finds himself on the run and squeezed in the jaws of subterfuge, "The Statement" is too vague in its historical flashbacks, gives poor depth into its sundry characters, breaches realism with a bunch of Brits in France, never makes its agenda clear, and doesn't sort itself out well in the end...to mention just a few of the flaws. The result is a film with a lukewarm reception by critics and the public at large and little reason to watch save another excellent performance by Caine. In spite of all that, I quite enjoyed this flick. Go figure. (B-)