Product Details

• Actors: Michael Caine, Tilda Swinton, Alan Bates, Jeremy Northam, Charlotte Rampling
• Directors: Norman Jewison
• Writers: Brian Moore, Ronald Harwood
• Producers: David M. Thompson, Jason Piette, Julia Rosenberg, Mark Musselman, Michael Cowan
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
  PLEASE NOTE: Some Region 1 DVDs may contain Regional Coding Enhancement (RCE). Some, but not all, of our international customers have had problems playing these enhanced discs on what are called "region-free" DVD players. For more information on RCE, click here.
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: April 27, 2004
• Run Time: 120 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0001GOH7K
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #55,416 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Statement" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Michael Caine's riveting performance is the best reason to see The Statement, a lopsided thriller with conspicuously noble intentions. In crafting a thematic counterpart to his Oscar®-winning script for The Pianist, screenwriter Ronald Harwood draws from another fact-based story set during World War II, adapting Brian Moore's captivating novel about an official French collaborator named Brossard (Caine) who executed seven Jews in 1944, under the Vichy regime of Nazi-occupied France, and eluded justice for decades thereafter. While a passionate French judge (Tilda Swinton) and army colonel (Jeremy Northam) pursue Brossard in 1992, director Norman Jewison smoothly executes a cat-and-mouse plot as Brossard hides in a series of right-wing Catholic sanctuaries. By introducing a conspiracy element not found in Moore's novel, Harwood and Jewison dilute an otherwise riveting story (based on the real-life war crimes of French Milice officer Paul Touvier), resulting in a contradictory portrayal of Caine's sympathetically penitent character. In a film that fails to clarify the maneuvering of its ultimate villains, it's a testament to Caine's skill that The Statement works as well as it does. Charlotte Rampling and the late Alan Bates appear in effective cameo roles. --Jeff Shannon

Product Description

STATEMENT - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Caine does ambiguity well, August 31, 2004

By 

Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Statement (DVD)

Although his films aren't always artistic successes, Michael Caine is one of my favorite actors, and at his best when his character is cheekily likable, e.g. in THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING (1975), SLEUTH (1972), SECONDHAND LIONS (2003). Rarely, he plays someone hateful, the most recent coming to mind being SHINER (2000). Here, in THE STATEMENT, his on-screen persona is oddly ambiguous, and it's left to supporting characters to provide the plot's protagonists.

It's June 1942, and a young Vichy French police officer, Pierre Brossard, supervises the round-up and execution of seven Jews by a contingent of German soldiers. After the war, he's charged with murder and collaboration with the enemy, but he escapes from prison, apparently aided by former superiors in the police establishment. Now, it's 1992, and Brossard (Michael Caine) lives in constant fear of exposure. A fervent Catholic, he skulks from French monastery to monastery, wherein he finds refuge with the help of sympathetic abbots and Church officials. A retired, former police official provides regular payments of money for frugal, day-to-day living. Now, Brossard is apparently being pursued by Jewish activists bent on his assassination. And if he hasn't worries enough, the French Justice Ministry has assigned a judge, Annemarie Livi (Tilda Swinton), and a police investigator, Colonel Roux (Jeremy Northam), to track Pierre down and take him into custody charged with war crimes. Are the two events related?

Pierre's wartime atrocity and his cold-hearted willingness to protect himself at any cost in the present are unlikely to endear him to the audience. On the other hand, the nature of the conspiracy against him by sinister forces, his failing health, and his sincere, if somewhat pathetic, religiousness render him an individual of some ambiguity. In the end, while Livi and Roux are the characters the viewer will naturally root for, Brossard will attract some small amount of sympathy because, perhaps, it's the popular Michael Caine in the role.

For me, the biggest problem with this otherwise reasonably intelligent film is the casting. Caine's Cockney British accent is never entirely submerged, and the other main roles have gone to Brits, most obviously Northam and Swinton. This is, after all, supposed to be France, but it might as well have been rural Hampshire! And it's never made clear why both the Church and powerful members of the government found it necessary or desirable to protect such a low-level Vichy functionary for so long anyway. Some conspiracies play better as fiction, and the Church is an ever-popular villain, especially if the Jesuits or a rogue cardinal or two are involved.

THE STATEMENT justly rates three stars, but I'm bumping it up a notch solely for Caine's performance (despite the accent). Northam and Swinton are also both effective.

One of the DVD's special features is an interview with Michael, in which he reveals that he was attracted to the Brossard role simply because he's rarely asked to play an unpleasant character not softened by his trademark cheeky humor. (I guess he forgot about SHINER!)

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Did I watch the same film as the critics?, May 4, 2004

By 

Charles Griffin (DeLand, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Statement (DVD)

I got a chance to watch the much maligned Norman Jewison film The Statement on DVD this weekend.

It's a damn fine film!!!

Without giving too much of the story away, the film is about an old Frenchman (played by Michael Caine) who is on the run throughout the south of France for war crimes he committed back in WWII. He has to excape both investigators and assassins (possibly from a radical Jewish organization) by taking refuge in primarily catholic churches.

It was actually filmed in France in real churches and government buildings. Excellent Hitchcockian cinematography and music. Well paced editing and outstanding acting from Tilda Swinton, Jeremy Northam, Ciaran Hinds, Frank Finlay, Alan Bates...and especially Caine. The screenplay was expertly adapted by Ron Harwood. And, for a film with a pretty low budget, the DVD transfer (anamorphic) is excellent and the 5.1 surround sound is decent.

What's up with the critics? OK, I'm a big Michael Caine fan, but that doesn't mean I like ALL the films he's in (Secondhand Lions was kinda corny, his role in Goldmember was far too small, etc.). This role is a true showcase for him. And anyone who respects Caine as an actor should watch this movie.

In truth, the storyline may be hard to follow...I'm sure that's the primary problem for the critics. I had the advantage of reading the original novel first, so there was virtually no confusion for me...and the film is remarkably faithful to the novel!

The novel was a bit complicated at times and I found myself having to re-read the occasional passage to keep up with the story...so maybe the film is similar in that respect.

Also, a lot of critics had a problem with the fact that the English actors aren't speaking with French accents...but this has been the case with many films before (Quills, The Last Emperor, Three Musketeers), I don't know why this film should be any different...besides, I can't think of anything more distracting than listening to a bunch of actors speaking with phony French accents for 2 hours!

I say take a chance on the film. It's definitely a thinking-person's thriller. I'd hate to see one of Michael Caine's best late-career performances go completely unnoticed.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Michael Caine is fantastic in a complex and challenging role, June 10, 2004

By 

Linda Linguvic (New York City) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Statement (DVD)

Starring Michael Caine, this 2003 film is based on a real-life story of a Frenchman who conspired with the Nazis and then spent most of his life hiding in Roman Catholic monasteries. It opens with a chilling scene filmed in black and white of seven Jews being dragged from their homes and brutally murdered. Flash forward to 1992. The audience sees a "statement" being typed identifying this wanted man. It's supposed to be placed upon his body after he is murdered. But Michael Caine turns the tables on his stalker and murders the man who is after him.

During the rest of the film, Caine is the hunted, but it is unclear who, exactly is after him. Is it the relatives of the Jews he murdered? Is it the corrupt French police? Is the Church? Or it a person in a high position who is concerned about his political future? Anyway, Caine is on the run. And Tilda Swinton cast as a judge, is trying to find him before he is murdered. The story is confusing. But the emotion is there. And Michael Caine, now 70 years old, does an incredible acting job. It's a difficult role, but he puts life into this unreformed but repentant Frenchman who keeps seeking absolution from priests as he goes about evading killers and doing some killing of his own. He is not a likeable character, but he's very human.

One of the problems I had with the film was that even though it was about a Frenchman and takes place in France, everyone speaks English. But I guess the filmmaker had to make some sort of compromise in order to get Caine. There was one excellent scene between Caine and his ex-wife, played by Charlotte Rampling. Problem is that it wasn't fully developed enough. However, in spite of these noticeable flaws and the fact that the film moved a bit slowly, I was still captivated by his Caine's performance.