The Offence - Critics

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 themes 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