Rent The Statement (2003)

Average Thriller - Great Cast - The Statement review by GI

A routine thriller that benefits from a topnotch cast. Michael Caine effortlessly plays an aging man on the run chased by Tilda Swinton in a story that is loosely based on real events. Swinton is Annemarie, a French Judge tasked with tracking down Broussard (Caine) a former nazi collaborator who personally selected and executed seven jewish men during the Second World War and who managed to escape justice. It turns out Broussard is protected by a secret cabal of catholics who fund and hide him. Also after him is a high ranking government official who Broussard can implicate in war crimes. All this leads to a film that has little excitement, hardly any action or suspense and where a series of incompetent agents fail to capture this angina ridden old man who outwits them time and time again to the point of tedium. All this is a shame too because with this cast and as director Norman Jewison's last film it had all the ingredients to be something rather good. But sadly this is no Marathon Man (1976) despite Ciarán Hinds, Charlotte Rampling, Jeremy Northam and Alan Bates also in his last theatrical film.