The Offence is a 1972 drama film, based upon the acclaimed 1968 stage play This Story of Yours by John Hopkins, directed by Sidney Lumet under the working title Something Like the Truth. It stars Sean Connery as a frustrated, obsessively aggressive police detective who snaps and kills a suspect (Ian Bannen) for personal reasons which are explored over the course of the film yet not fully revealed until the end. The tagline is "After 20 years what Detective-Sergeant Johnson has seen and done is destroying him." The film is one of two feature films starring Connery after his debut as James Bond that has not seen a North American release on DVD, the other being Woman of Straw (1964)[2]. As of 2008, there is an online petition set up to bring the film to North American DVD and Blu-ray Disc.[3]
Plot summary
Detective-Sergeant Johnson (Connery), has been a police officer for twenty years, and is deeply affected by the murders, rapes, and other serious crimes he has investigated.
His anger surfaces while interrogating a suspected child molester, Baxter (Ian Bannen in a BAFTA-nominated role), whom he brutally beats and kills. Johnson is suspended, goes home for the night to his unloving wife (Vivien Merchant). The following day, Johnson is interrogated by Detective Superintendent Cartwright (Trevor Howard), and during the long interrogation flashbacks show the events during the night when Johnson killed Baxter.
It is not revealed if Baxter is the culprit in the molestation case and the implication of Cartwright's interrogation and the flashbacks is left for the viewer to decide. Has Johnson, having murdered a possibly innocent Baxter been reduced to the same level as the child molesters and murderers he is supposedly protecting society from? In the words of Baxter to Johnson 'Don't beat me for thoughts in your head'.
Background
When Connery agreed to return as James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever, United Artists pledged to back two of Connery's film projects of his own free choosing, including free choice for his own role, provided they would be costing $2m or less. The Offence, made under the working title of Something Like the Truth due to Connery's choice of Hopkins' script, was completed in one month with a budget of $1 million. The action sequences of the physical interaction between Connery and his suspect Bannen were designed by an uncredited Bob Simmons who had designed similar action scenes for the Bond films.[4]
It was a commercial failure and did not yield a profit for nine years, even going unreleased in several markets including France, where it did not premiere until 2007. United Artists pulled out of the deal and the next project, a film version of Macbeth that Connery was to direct, was scotched by Roman Polanski's adaptation.
The film was shot mainly on location in Bracknell, Berkshire.
DVD releases
In 2004, MGM UK released a DVD of the film which contained no extras or trailers. Simultaneous releases from MGM were made in other PAL format countries, such as Germany and Australia. On October 20, 2008, the film was again released on DVD in the UK by Optimum Releasing, again without extras or trailers. As of 2009, the film has not been released on DVD in North America, one of the few films of either Sean Connery or Sidney Lumet not to do so.
Critics
"A fascinating look at the human psyche based on Z Cars scriptwriter John Hopkins acclaimed stage play This Story of Yours, The Offence is an expertly crafted study of evil and human weakness that demands to be watched in its entirety. [...] it still packs quite a punch and features compelling performances from both Sean Connery and Ian Bannen."
- Britmovie
"Less well-known than his other British pictures (The Hill, The Deadly Affair, Murder on the Orient Express), this unrelentingly somber policier inaugurates a newfound force in Lumet’s work. The story, adapted by John Hopkins from his play, abounds in stylistic tics (recurring visual motifs, various events replayed several times, color coding), but the flashiness that pockmarked much of the director’s earlier work has been pruned to hushed, concentrated intensity. Likewise, the movie looks ahead to the bathed-in-gray thematics of Lumet’s later studies of law & order ambivalence -- Connery’s pressure-cooker copper, plagued with lurid images palpitating inside his brain, is the template for the protagonists of Serpico, Prince of the City and Q & A. Connery pinpoints some fantastic shadings of bullying, dissatisfaction and self-disgust, matched by Bannen’s peerless razzing -- the culminating pounding is less liberating purgation than guilt transference, christened by Bannen’s bloodied leer."
- Fernando F. Croce, Cinepassion
"The notion of a 'good cop' becoming corrupted by the day to day horrors of his job is nothing new, but it plays out in a way that is completely engrossing, even edge-of-your-seat suspenseful. [...] Ultimately Lumet is less concerned with constructing a whodunit than he is in exploring the dynamic between these two seemingly disparate men, who become more and more alike as their interrogation plays out. [...] The end result is Connery's realization (unspoken) that he is, in fact, of the same 'species' as the people he has so bitterly denounced throughout the film. [...] His moment of clarity is not a moment of 'redemption' so much as it is an acceptance of personal guilt.
The central performances are absolutely brilliant. Connery has never been better, even if he did win an Academy Award for The Untouchables (1987). [...] had this film been better received in 1972, his performance would have garnered him an Oscar nomination. Bannen takes a character that, on the printed page, may have seemed completely unsavory and makes him oddly likable. [...] Trevor Howard and Vivien Merchant also do superb work in their smaller roles [...].
An absolutely fantastic film, The Offence deserves to be far better known and revered. Few films have been as successful at being so ambiguous as well as so dialogue-heavy."
- DVD Maniacs
See also
References
- ^ Release dates for The Offence at IMDb
- ^ Sean Connery at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Information on the online petition to grant The Offence a North American DVD and Blu-ray release
- ^ The Offence (1972) - Full cast and crew
External links
|
Films directed by Sidney Lumet |
|
| 1950s |
|
|
| 1960s |
|
|
| 1970s |
|
|
| 1980s |
|
|
| 1990s |
|
|
| 2000s |
|
|
