This is a weak movie which could have turned into something better. . It's surprising that this movie won awards for directing and cinematography. The story and the relationships between a few of the characters are somewhat interesting but the way it's told is boring and non-suspenseful. I think there was no chemistry in this movie whatsoever except for the scene 1/4 of the way through with Michael Caine and his ex-wife (Charlotte Rampling). This is when the movie started to come alive. The two seemed to have real good interaction but unfortunately she was never to be seen in the movie again. I'm surprised that Michael Caine took this movie. You're not going to get the Caine from The Eagle Has Landed, Hannah and Her Sisters or Educating Rita in this flick. I can think of a handful of other Caine suspense films that are 300% better than this one. The duty he had in this movie was to act feeble and act obsessed with religion which he did. Other than that there was nothing for him. His weeping and pleading for forgiveness in front of priests wasn't even believable. He has aged a lot and I don't know if his skills have diminished or not. Caine's character (one who was forced by Nazi's to execute jews) was chased from town to town and was never confronted face-to-face by his enemies. There was a lot of phone tag and no confrontation. The story doesn't do a good job explaining why these specific people are hunting him down. And the main thing I wanted to know was: Why have these people waited until he was 75 before they started hunting him down? That was never answered. I was also waiting for Caine's character to get real clever and outwit someone (which Caine is really good at) but there was nothing in the script resembling that. Caine's character was an extremely average man who depended only on some praying, a beer or some wine and that was it. The other characters were lost I thought. I thought they were acting like they were just reading the script for the first time especially the aged judges which took every bit of suspense out of this film. The judges and the clergy were the main keys in the movie and watching them was like watching dying whales on a beach. The young woman judge (who was one of the other main characters) spent every scene trying to get her image across as a tough, liberated, chain-smoking woman. The trouble lay in the fact that her script was completely hollow and her character never took any shape. When the camera was on her I spent my time staring at the smoke she blew out of her mouth instead of listening to what she had to say. The ending was a real let down, too. I thought there was going to be lots of struggling when Caine met his enemies face-to-face. Instead, when they finally caught up with him someone posing as a friend lured him into an alley and popped him point blank with a couple bullets with no struggle or exchange of words and that was it! Then I waited for a few last syllables from Caine but nothing happened! It seems that this movie was made for the sole purpose of honoring some french jews that were executed In WWII and nothing more. The best thing in this movie was the French scenery.
Review of The Statement
