Review of The Offence (1973) by I Am N — 26 Oct 2010

One of the most brilliant, intense, gloomy, atypical and unknown movie from Sidney Lumet.

The story is about an disillusioned police detective (Connery), who have seen too much and is on the edge of a serious breakdown. Furthermore, the fact that he investigates a serie of child rapes dont help it at all.

His fury and all of his frustrations will be unleashed when he will confront a suspect (Ian Bannen) in the interrogation room....summoning old demons from the past.

At begining, it was Sean Connery's idea to adapt this stage play written from John Hopkins, into a movie. Indeed, Connery liked the fact to play a character far away from his usual interpretation of James Bond...and succeded absolutely.

His portrayal of this obsessively aggressive detective is perfect and give us the strange idea of an ambiguous character not so clean.

You can find that kind of "two side" cops in the works of writers such James Ellroy or David Peace, who wrote the excellent " Red Riding Quartet" and was adapted for the british television as " The Red Riding Trilogy".

For me personally, I put " The Offence" as an introduction to this trilogy.

It is not without reason that this film was not available for more than 30 years. 60 % of the movie is an "in camera" situation and Lumet avoids every easy tricks to please the viewer. The mood is extremely cold and the subject, extremely dark. Here, everything is hidden under the carpet.

Nevertheless for me, this movie is the quintessense of film noir !