THE STATEMENT -------------
During WWII, Pierre Brossard (Michael Caine, "The Quiet American"; George Williams in flashback) was a Vichy collaborator who participated in the execution of seven Jewish men in Dombey. In 1992 Provence, he is a hunted man, being pursued by those who wish to retaliate and brand him with "The Statement."
Director Norman Jewison ("The Hurricane") tells a cat and mouse story with an unsympathetic protagonist and murky agenda. The Canadian director's all British cast portraying French characters in accented English further adds another off flavor to this stew.
The film begins with a black and white flashback of Brossard's crime against humanity before cutting to the senior citizen war criminal in a local cafe. He's being observed by David Memenbaum (Matt Craven, "Timeline"), who follows Brossard up mountainous roads in a Hitchcockian sequence complete with Herrmann-inspired score (Normand Corbeil, "The Art of War"). Staging a breakdown, David lies in wait, but Brossard is one step ahead of him, and discovers the Statement, identifying him and his crime by a group avenging the Jewish victims of Dombey, meant to be left on his dead body.
Brossard is also being hunted in an official capacity by Judge Anne Marie Livi (Tilda Swinton, "The Deep End") and her assistant Colonel Roux (Jeremy Northam, "The Singing Detective"), who begin a sweep to uncover both Brossard and the underground group intent on assassinating him. Livi is aggressive and impulsive and may have a personal agenda (one of the victims names is also Livi) while Roux is more methodical and level-headed. They soon discover that the man who followed Brossard towards the Abbey de St. Cros was not Jewish and that the Catholic Church is involved in covering Brossard's tracks, specifically a mysterious group known as the Chavealiers de Saint Marie. Anne Marie believes that following the pursuers will lead her to an old and corrupt man in the French government. A warning from her Uncle Armand (Alan Bates, "The Mothman Prophecies"), a highly placed government official, confirms her suspicions.
Ronald Harwood's ("The Pianist") adaptation of Brian Moore's novel fails to distill any satisfaction at the conclusion of this story's arduous twists and turns. The casting of a high profile star like Michael Caine as Brossard was a dubious move, as the character is but a mere pawn caught between the above board Livi/Roux and the shadowy conspiracy they are up against. As envisioned by Jewison, Nazi sympathies in the Catholic Church (one Monsignor explains that the Resistance was Communist and would have delivered France to Stalin) plays more like "The Omen" than Costa-Gavras's powerful film of a year ago, "Amen." Intermittent Hitchcock homages (a Dutch angle shot of a bell tower, an escape over tiled rooftops, a food-obsessed police inspector) don't sustain their tone throughout the film.
Caine does his best with a difficult lot, portraying the desperation of a cornered man with a heart condition well, but he cannot rise above a script that has him threatening his wife with harming her dog in one scene and praying for a state of grace in the next. Swinton and Northam begin to develop what looks like a sexy sparring partnership, only to have it abandoned to the script's chases from one locale to the next. Rampling, enjoying a career resurgence of late, may be hoping this extended cameo will be forgotten as her character makes little contextual sense. Other name players like Ciarán Hinds ("Veronica Guerin"), and John Neville ("Spider") are given little to do.
"The Statement" may be viewed as a warning against collusion of Church and State, but it is the filmic equivalent of a run-on sentence with too many dangling participles.
C-
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