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Rating:  -
This certainly had the potential to be much better than it was. Two groups of Nazi hunters, one operating within the law & one without, close in on a fugitive from justice after 40 years. Meanwhile, the fugitive uses every resource at his disposal to remain at large, all the while struggling with a magnificent case of Catholic guilt. How could this not be interesting?
About halfway through, I realized that this movie wasn't going to get any better than it was. We jump from from abbey or priory to another, as the fugitive seeks refuge from a sympathetic cleric. The hunters close in. The fugitive escapes one more time. Really shlocky "thriller" music plays (ditching this rotten soundtrack would have been the first thing I would have done to make this movie better). The hunters regroup to figure out what went wrong. Michael Caine weeps and fears for his eternal salvation. Repeat cycle another half dozen times. This is not what I would call a coherent narrative.
Throw in a predictable Catholic conspiracy subplot and an incredibly rushed and contrived ending (just how many scenes were cut from this movie to bring it in under two hours?), and what we are left with is a movie which makes no sense and is going nowhere fast. Michael Caine is decent enough, but we are left with little to no insight as to what exactly makes this character tick. The other characters have no depth to them whatsoever, so don't even bother trying to plumb their motives. What a waste.
Rating:  -
Did someone say political thriller? Lopsided? Yes, it was lopsided. It lopped on the side of a slow crawl and boredom. I'm sure that's how the plot was mapped-out, a slow, deliberate pace to the conclusion. The funny thing was how short Matt Craven's part was, before he got blown away very early in the film, by Caine (Pierre Brossard) the French WWII Nazi Sympathizer. Tilda Swinton (Annemarie Livi) was very good as the judge, trying to get Brossard before the Jewish "hunters" rub him out.
I guess I was looking for a little more excitement, but you can't expect that with Michael Caine now having reached the senior citizen level and moving at a snails pace. Even though he is fast on the draw - fast enough to blow away two "hunters" attempting to kill him.
Charlotte Rampling makes a short cameo appearance as Caine's wife, Nicole. You may recogniza Ciaron Hinds as Pochon, the leader of the Nazi hunters, who also starred as Carl, in "Munich"
Rating:  -
Michael Caine rarely disappoints and this is no exception. A tale about Nazi hunting, but twisted by inclusion of a French Nazi sympathizer with some redeeming qualities. Or does he? The movie is a bit conflicted about that. The scenes of southern France are charming. Worth watching.
Rating:  -
Three years before "The Da Vinci Code" made Opus Dei into a vast Catholic conspiracy, Norman Jewison directed "The Statement" in 2003. It makes Opus Dei seem like a polo club, merely hiding the equivalent of a secret handshake. Not only does the French Catholic Church have its own secret society ("Chevaliers"), this group has been sheltering a French war criminal (Michael Caine) within various abbeys throughout France for sixty years after the war. He is being pursued by the French police under a new human rights law, and by some unknown, woefully incompetent, assassins.
Caine's war crime, in the service of Vichy France, is based upon the actual murder of seven innocent Jews on June 29,1944 by the Nazis in the French town of Rilleux-la-pape, in which he collaborated as a young officer. Caine's acting is superb as usual. He plays the sorrowful, guilt-ridden penitent as well as any of the self-confident, worldly-wise roles he normally plays; the mark of a great actor. Tilda Swinton as the judge and Jeremy Northam as the detective in pursuit of Caine do serviceable work but never provide the sexual chemistry intended.
Of course, the French Catholic secret society that has been hiding Caine reaches to the highest ranks of power in postwar France. There is also the "de rigueur" call to the Vatican to an unnamed Vatican official. Though the Vatican refuses to help Caine escape from France, the dialogue carries the obvious implication that though it has helped in the past it just can't do it anymore; not necessarly because it is immoral, but, you know, bad pub.
Immediately prior to the final credits, the film is pretextually dedicated to the seven innocents murdered at the beginning of the film; along with the approximately 77,000 other Jews murdered during that period.
Jewison, however, seems not as interested in dedicating his story to murdered French Jews as he is in doing a number on the Catholic Church.
Keep in mind that the murder of innocent Jews by Nazis, with French collaboration, is the only factual part of the entire movie. The rest is a shameless calumny of the Catholic Church, bereft of fact and well beyond the boundaries of artistic license.
This movie leaps from the undoubted fact of a Catholic clergy passively turning their heads the other way during the Nazi persecution of the Jews, to the active complicity of the church in sheltering war criminals during the postwar period. There is absolutely no evidence to support such a gross distortion of history. The Rev. John Hagee in San Antonio might enjoy the message in this movie. I did not.
Never forget, but never distort. Future generations deserve better.
Rating: -
A 2004 thriller that has a distinctly 90s look to it. It was deliberate, since that's the setting, and there's nothing wrong with choosing a 90s look. I did the same with VIGILANTE JUSTICE. They needed to ensure their hero wasn't too old to run, I wanted cynicism tinged with innocence, and both stories would be very different with cell phones and the Internet.
Michael Caine plays a Frenchman who cooperated with the Vichy Government during WWII and killed some Jews, and he's running from that over 40 years later. This feels like a made-for-TV movie. It's a fairly straightforward thriller with gorgeous French scenery and a forgivable number of cliches, elevated just a tad by Caine's fine performance. If it's on your TV, tape it. If you find it in a DVD shop in China, go ahead and grab it. It's good for when you're feeling exhausted. The novel may be different, but I tend to doubt it.
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