The thing that has so fascinated me about Sidney Lumet, and the reason I think he doesn't get the credit others would get for his high points, is the fact that, in a sense, he is the anti-auteur. Not a single one of his films has the style or tone of any of his other works, a quality chalked up less to versatility than simple unevenness. Unlike Billy Wilder, where every one of his films is a different type of classic, Lumet is as varied in quality as vibe, and it's baffling that the same man could make a dry, satirical masterpiece like Network and an awkward, ignorant mystery like A Stranger Among Us. A filmmaker who somehow opened up Murder on the Orient Express, a film entirely set on a train, but couldn't take Long Day's Journey Into Night off the stage. The same man can make a lurid, trashy potboiler like Guilty as Sin, and fire back with a lugubrious British police procedural, namely 1972's The Offence.
The film follows (Sean Connery), a detective whose every other word is "bloody", on his obsessive and tireless quest to hunt down a pedophilic child rapist. Lumet has adopted a jarring, off-putting European style: odd angles, drab settings, and long, slow takes. Too long, in fact, as many scenes precipitously tip from intriguing to slumber-inducing, and several scenes continue on far past their point of usefulness. For instance, the opening police interrogation scene is intended to inform us of two things: (1) that the man they're holding isn't talking, and (2) that Connery is overly driven to solve the case, to the point of wrongful violence. We are shown the full scene as the finale, and that should tell you all you need to know, that this is the cut version of the scene; it should take no more than five or six minutes to establish, and yet, eats up over twenty minutes of screen time in a film nearly two hours long. Did he have to fill a quota? The film manages to put forth a lot of simple platitudes in such a bizarre, roundabout way that I can't believe there could be any other reason for it.
The Offence has other problems, all of them technical.The film needs a replacement at both editor and director of photography, as the film's pace is maddening, long scenes of nothing punctuated by quick, baffling flashes of actual information that are difficult to catch much less comprehend. Lending credence to the quota theory, the film opens with a pre-credit sequence that is a silent, slow-motion version of an inessential scene that occurs not twenty minutes after the credits roll. The film is also hideously poorly-lit, bathing every scene in a pool of darkness that makes it damn near impossible to discern what is occurring when something actually is. Of course, as established, not a lot actually does. Once the aforementioned suspected quota-filling interrogation concludes, the film goes even an even more punishingly overlong scene, a drunken rambling of an argument/discussion between Connery and his wife (Vivien Merchant), with all the incoherence and crying of a Cassavetes film with none of the pathos or downtrodden horror. The scene once again takes half an hour to explain what could have been done in a dozen minutes of screen time: his job has affected him to the point of emotional ruin because of the horrible things he has seen, especially pertaining to children.
This is especially unfortunate considering Sean Connery is as his absolute best, projecting a damaged man who just wants to do the right thing, shifting believably from injured humanist to flailing, wide-eyed, all-out rage at a moment's notice. Most of the rest of the cast are unremarkable character players, with Connery receiving able support from both brilliantly whimpering Ian Bannen, as well as legendary British thespian Trevor Howard, who shows up as a blunt, irked detective superintendent, and his voice is as authoritative and distinctive as I have always known him to be, with a wonderful aged gruffness to his voice that provides a fabulous counterpoint in his scenes with Connery. Of course, the scene is merely verbally articulating information we already know, and even its freshness wears off in time.
Lumet has had some duds before in my quest, but none has been as frustrating as The Offence. When the film's plot trudges on, the film is captivating drama, but so often, the wheels grind to a screeching halt to spend an inordinate amount of time revealing and analyzing things we already know and have assumed at the outset. In fact, looking back on the film, it's far more theatrical than I initially noticed, and really, the entire film amounts to three or four extended setpieces with a handful of scene transitions in between. Unfortunately, those transitions ended up being the only parts really worth my time. That's the real offence.
{Grade: 5.75/10 (low C+) / #15 (of 20) of 1972 / #18 (of 26) of Lumet}
The film follows (Sean Connery), a detective whose every other word is "bloody", on his obsessive and tireless quest to hunt down a pedophilic child rapist. Lumet has adopted a jarring, off-putting European style: odd angles, drab settings, and long, slow takes. Too long, in fact, as many scenes precipitously tip from intriguing to slumber-inducing, and several scenes continue on far past their point of usefulness. For instance, the opening police interrogation scene is intended to inform us of two things: (1) that the man they're holding isn't talking, and (2) that Connery is overly driven to solve the case, to the point of wrongful violence. We are shown the full scene as the finale, and that should tell you all you need to know, that this is the cut version of the scene; it should take no more than five or six minutes to establish, and yet, eats up over twenty minutes of screen time in a film nearly two hours long. Did he have to fill a quota? The film manages to put forth a lot of simple platitudes in such a bizarre, roundabout way that I can't believe there could be any other reason for it.
The Offence has other problems, all of them technical.The film needs a replacement at both editor and director of photography, as the film's pace is maddening, long scenes of nothing punctuated by quick, baffling flashes of actual information that are difficult to catch much less comprehend. Lending credence to the quota theory, the film opens with a pre-credit sequence that is a silent, slow-motion version of an inessential scene that occurs not twenty minutes after the credits roll. The film is also hideously poorly-lit, bathing every scene in a pool of darkness that makes it damn near impossible to discern what is occurring when something actually is. Of course, as established, not a lot actually does. Once the aforementioned suspected quota-filling interrogation concludes, the film goes even an even more punishingly overlong scene, a drunken rambling of an argument/discussion between Connery and his wife (Vivien Merchant), with all the incoherence and crying of a Cassavetes film with none of the pathos or downtrodden horror. The scene once again takes half an hour to explain what could have been done in a dozen minutes of screen time: his job has affected him to the point of emotional ruin because of the horrible things he has seen, especially pertaining to children.
This is especially unfortunate considering Sean Connery is as his absolute best, projecting a damaged man who just wants to do the right thing, shifting believably from injured humanist to flailing, wide-eyed, all-out rage at a moment's notice. Most of the rest of the cast are unremarkable character players, with Connery receiving able support from both brilliantly whimpering Ian Bannen, as well as legendary British thespian Trevor Howard, who shows up as a blunt, irked detective superintendent, and his voice is as authoritative and distinctive as I have always known him to be, with a wonderful aged gruffness to his voice that provides a fabulous counterpoint in his scenes with Connery. Of course, the scene is merely verbally articulating information we already know, and even its freshness wears off in time.
Lumet has had some duds before in my quest, but none has been as frustrating as The Offence. When the film's plot trudges on, the film is captivating drama, but so often, the wheels grind to a screeching halt to spend an inordinate amount of time revealing and analyzing things we already know and have assumed at the outset. In fact, looking back on the film, it's far more theatrical than I initially noticed, and really, the entire film amounts to three or four extended setpieces with a handful of scene transitions in between. Unfortunately, those transitions ended up being the only parts really worth my time. That's the real offence.
{Grade: 5.75/10 (low C+) / #15 (of 20) of 1972 / #18 (of 26) of Lumet}