The Statement ** (2003, Michael Caine, Tilda Swinton, Jeremy Northam, Alan Bates, Charlotte Rampling, John Neville, Ciarân Hinds, Frank Finlay) – Classic Movie Review 13,571

Norman Jewison’s 2003 final film The Statement stars the formidable line-up of Michael Caine, Tilda Swinton, Jeremy Northam, Alan Bates, Charlotte Rampling, John Neville, Ciarân Hinds, and Frank Finlay.

Director Norman Jewison’s 2003 film The Statement is written by the clever Ronald Harwood and stars the formidable line-up of Michael Caine, Tilda Swinton, Jeremy Northam, Alan Bates, Charlotte Rampling, John Neville, Ciarân Hinds, and Frank Finlay.

Michael Caine’s performance is noticeably better than most of the rest of the elements in this rather slack and iffy thriller, based on the best-selling 1995 novel by Brian Moore, about a Nazi-helping World War Two French cop called Pierre Brossard (Caine), pursued in the present by investigators Annemarie Livi (Tilda Swinton) and Colonel Roux (Jeremy Northam).

Although The Statement remains watchable, it isn’t always terribly exciting or credible, and nor does it do justice to its underlying serious big subjects. However, Tilda Swinton is also outstanding as the persistent Investigating Judge Annemarie Livi, with Jeremy Northam also notable as the senior French Gendarmerie investigator Colonel Roux. 

The last film of Norman Jewison and Alan Bates.

The film is inspired by the story of Vichy French police official Paul Touvier, indicted after World War Two for ordering the execution of seven Jews in retaliation for the French Resistance’s assassination of Vichy France minister Philippe Henriot. But Touvier escaped trial with the aid of right-wing Roman Catholic clergy for decades after the war. He was finally arrested in 1989 in a Nice priory and convicted in 1994. 

Also in the cast are William Hutt, Matt Craven, Noam Jenkins, Colin Salmon, Peter Wight, Malcolm Sinclair, David de Keyser, Christian Erickson, Dominic Gould, Peter Hudson, Joseph Malerba, Irene Palko, George Williams, and Edward Petherbridge.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,571

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