Post by The Social Introvert on Feb 8, 2018 16:57:02 GMT
This film is exceptionally dark and goes to a place I did not expect. It really was something. I did a review of it here if you're interested:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AnC2bQuEd8
If you prefer to read, I wrote it up also below.
Word of warning though - I felt it was best to go into the film blind, and it's difficult to talk about the film having to gloss over the entire 'thing' the film is about, so I will mention it below. This will probably be regarded as a spoiler by most although I'm not exactly sure (it's character driven and isn't full of twists and turns). Read at your own risk anyway.
Sidley Lumet was of my favourite directors. He was a specialist in cop thrillers and courtroom dramas, movies that felt real, gritty, and dirty. Some of his hits include Serpico, The Verdict, Prince of the City, 12 Angry Men and my personal favourite, Dog Day Afternoon. One of the more praiseworthy aspects of his films were the performances his actors would deliver – you’ll often find that a famous actor might be more known for a different film, but the movie in which he would push himself to his limits, give a performance that towers over his other films, would belong to Lumet. Like Vin Diesel in Find Me Guilty. Often this would be because Lumet, who directed 17 different actors in Oscar nominated roles, loved to hold private rehearsals with the cast, giving them time and opportunity to experiment and get a real feel of their characters. He was a favourite among actors, encouraging them forward their own creative ideas for their characters.
The problem with Lumet’s filmography is that the man loved to constantly work, regardless of the quality of the picture. Apparently when he was without a project he would literally pull out a script from his bedside drawer and film it, so it’s no wonder that there’s a few stinkers on his CV to counter his classics. It’s for this reason that I wasn’t too sure how to set my expectations going into the comparatively obscure The Offence, his British police flick in which a police officer snaps whilst interrogating a suspected child molester and proceeds to physically assault him.
In one of his 5 pairings with Lumet, Sean Connery plays the burnt out Detective Sergeant Johnson who is part of a team trying to track down a child molester who already has a handful of victims to his name, and stop him before he strikes again. He slips through the cracks, however, and assaults a school girl who is later found by Johnson in the woods, horrified and half naked. The police bring in a suspect, Kenneth Baxter, who was staggering drunk around the town. A short unsuccessful interrogation follows, after which Sergeant Johnson, who is clearly a larger than life character and adept at scaring his interviewees, has a go. From outside the interrogation room the police staff hear scuffles and screams, and burst through the room to find Baxter lying unconscious on the floor, covered in blood, and Johnson standing over him looking like the grim reaper himself. Baxter is taken to hospital and it is Johnson’s turn to be interviewed, all whilst there is a real possibility that the battered suspect could die in prison.
The Offence goes to a very dark and unsettling place. It was definitely not the cop film I was expecting. In fact, whether Baxter committed the crimes or not have very little to do with what the film is about. What the film is instead concerned with is Johnson’s inner demons that are eating away at him, the disturbing chasm that has grown and grown over the years, covering more and more ground in Johnson’s mind until he cannot ignore it anymore, he cannot retract it into the back of his mind. It seems that in his role as an officer, what with all the horrible things he’s seen and his burden in getting into the minds of his suspects, it’s all suddenly taken its toll and he has begun to have taboo and dirty thoughts of his own. He has starred so long and hard into the abyss, that it has opened its eyes, starred back, and reached out a twisted hand. Johnson’s inability in killing the sick thoughts he has found himself having about the girl he found naturally alarm him, and though we do not see until the very end of the film what caused Johnson to go berserk and launch himself at Baxter, midway through the film he’s home after the interrogation. The reason I bring this up is because it’s one of the many examples of the terrific directorial work from Lumet. On his way out of the parking lot, Johnson briefly hits his car on the curb on the way out. He must have driven out of that lot hundreds of times and yet tonight he’s hit the curb on the way out. That, and along with him trying to open the wrong apartment door when he gets home, are subtle hints that his mind is elsewhere, that today something is not right. He must’ve have beaten up a few suspects in his time, after all it was 1970’s Britain, but today something is different. Something happened at that interrogation.
Another piece of nuanced brilliance from Lumet is that the way in which he films the scenes at Johnson’s apartment make the man look even bigger than he usually looks. All of a sudden the walls look closer, the corridors tighter. Johnson’s world is becoming more and more claustrophobic as this phantom clawing at him is becoming stronger and stronger. It’s terrific work form the ever delicate Lumet.
Let’s rewind a little bit. When Johnson finds the girl I found Connery’s acting really weird. She was withering and hysterically petrified at seeing this bulky stranger suddenly appear, and I was saying to Johnson “For Pete’s sake, tell her you’re a policeman, man!” In addition to this, some of his facial expressions and hand movements come off as a bit questionable, and when other officers arrive on the scene he had an odd shocked look on his face, almost shameful like you’d think he did it. And that’s exactly what it’s supposed to do! It’s only until you’ve seen the film in its entirety that you realize the nuance of Connery’s performance especially in the scene in the woods. It’s supposed to plant a seed in your mind, not a generalization or a declarative statement. Just a little raising of the eyebrow that makes you think “Hmmmm…?” And like the seed in the back of Connery’s mind, it grows and grows until suddenly the film’s uglier and darker side reveals itself. There is something very wrong with this man. It’s sad in a way because he doesn’t want to become what he thinks is, and he desperately searches for help. Ironically the one person who might understand him, who might’ve held up a clear mirror in front of him, is the suspected child molester Baxter. Maybe that’s why he launched himself at the suspect, because he was the only one who recognised Johnson for what he had become? Or maybe because Baxter could have exposed Johnson? Or maybe, as some lines of dialogue suggest, he sees himself in the molester? I mean, he does tell a fellow officer that the suspect’s mind “was crawling with pictures of that girl. Her naked body covered in mud.” The suspect never said this, and there’s no way he could have known that. He must’ve been projecting, subconsciously at that point in the film, his own thoughts and desires.
On a technical level The Offence has no cracks or holes. Lumet brings his A game, and the film has a kind of low-key, gloomy and depressing feel emphasised by the eerie an unorthodox score that often resembles the kind of constant bleep noise that those old PAL TVs would make when a program would end. You know how sometimes you have one of those days on a weekend where you wake up, it’s pouring down with rain, everything looks grey and gloomy and you feel like all the life’s been sucked out of the world. That’s exactly the feel that The Offense captures.
Johnson’s breakdown as a result of his entertainment of disturbing and taboo thoughts implies that he identifies too closely with the kind of people he has spent his career putting behind bars. His inner turmoil is the centrepiece of the film. It’s only until you watch the whole movie that all the little things click into place, that everything makes sense. I found this movie to be a marvellous small-scaled character study of a very sick and corrupted man whose mind is driving him insane.
I was thinking about giving it an 8 out of 10. But somehow it doesn’t really feel like an 8/10 movie. I suppose because I have so many of the great Lumet pictures at an 8 and this one doesn’t measure up when stacked up with the rest that I feel uncomfortable giving this an 8. But it is truly a magnificent psychological drama. I’ll settle at 7.5.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AnC2bQuEd8
If you prefer to read, I wrote it up also below.
Word of warning though - I felt it was best to go into the film blind, and it's difficult to talk about the film having to gloss over the entire 'thing' the film is about, so I will mention it below. This will probably be regarded as a spoiler by most although I'm not exactly sure (it's character driven and isn't full of twists and turns). Read at your own risk anyway.
Sidley Lumet was of my favourite directors. He was a specialist in cop thrillers and courtroom dramas, movies that felt real, gritty, and dirty. Some of his hits include Serpico, The Verdict, Prince of the City, 12 Angry Men and my personal favourite, Dog Day Afternoon. One of the more praiseworthy aspects of his films were the performances his actors would deliver – you’ll often find that a famous actor might be more known for a different film, but the movie in which he would push himself to his limits, give a performance that towers over his other films, would belong to Lumet. Like Vin Diesel in Find Me Guilty. Often this would be because Lumet, who directed 17 different actors in Oscar nominated roles, loved to hold private rehearsals with the cast, giving them time and opportunity to experiment and get a real feel of their characters. He was a favourite among actors, encouraging them forward their own creative ideas for their characters.
The problem with Lumet’s filmography is that the man loved to constantly work, regardless of the quality of the picture. Apparently when he was without a project he would literally pull out a script from his bedside drawer and film it, so it’s no wonder that there’s a few stinkers on his CV to counter his classics. It’s for this reason that I wasn’t too sure how to set my expectations going into the comparatively obscure The Offence, his British police flick in which a police officer snaps whilst interrogating a suspected child molester and proceeds to physically assault him.
In one of his 5 pairings with Lumet, Sean Connery plays the burnt out Detective Sergeant Johnson who is part of a team trying to track down a child molester who already has a handful of victims to his name, and stop him before he strikes again. He slips through the cracks, however, and assaults a school girl who is later found by Johnson in the woods, horrified and half naked. The police bring in a suspect, Kenneth Baxter, who was staggering drunk around the town. A short unsuccessful interrogation follows, after which Sergeant Johnson, who is clearly a larger than life character and adept at scaring his interviewees, has a go. From outside the interrogation room the police staff hear scuffles and screams, and burst through the room to find Baxter lying unconscious on the floor, covered in blood, and Johnson standing over him looking like the grim reaper himself. Baxter is taken to hospital and it is Johnson’s turn to be interviewed, all whilst there is a real possibility that the battered suspect could die in prison.
The Offence goes to a very dark and unsettling place. It was definitely not the cop film I was expecting. In fact, whether Baxter committed the crimes or not have very little to do with what the film is about. What the film is instead concerned with is Johnson’s inner demons that are eating away at him, the disturbing chasm that has grown and grown over the years, covering more and more ground in Johnson’s mind until he cannot ignore it anymore, he cannot retract it into the back of his mind. It seems that in his role as an officer, what with all the horrible things he’s seen and his burden in getting into the minds of his suspects, it’s all suddenly taken its toll and he has begun to have taboo and dirty thoughts of his own. He has starred so long and hard into the abyss, that it has opened its eyes, starred back, and reached out a twisted hand. Johnson’s inability in killing the sick thoughts he has found himself having about the girl he found naturally alarm him, and though we do not see until the very end of the film what caused Johnson to go berserk and launch himself at Baxter, midway through the film he’s home after the interrogation. The reason I bring this up is because it’s one of the many examples of the terrific directorial work from Lumet. On his way out of the parking lot, Johnson briefly hits his car on the curb on the way out. He must have driven out of that lot hundreds of times and yet tonight he’s hit the curb on the way out. That, and along with him trying to open the wrong apartment door when he gets home, are subtle hints that his mind is elsewhere, that today something is not right. He must’ve have beaten up a few suspects in his time, after all it was 1970’s Britain, but today something is different. Something happened at that interrogation.
Another piece of nuanced brilliance from Lumet is that the way in which he films the scenes at Johnson’s apartment make the man look even bigger than he usually looks. All of a sudden the walls look closer, the corridors tighter. Johnson’s world is becoming more and more claustrophobic as this phantom clawing at him is becoming stronger and stronger. It’s terrific work form the ever delicate Lumet.
Let’s rewind a little bit. When Johnson finds the girl I found Connery’s acting really weird. She was withering and hysterically petrified at seeing this bulky stranger suddenly appear, and I was saying to Johnson “For Pete’s sake, tell her you’re a policeman, man!” In addition to this, some of his facial expressions and hand movements come off as a bit questionable, and when other officers arrive on the scene he had an odd shocked look on his face, almost shameful like you’d think he did it. And that’s exactly what it’s supposed to do! It’s only until you’ve seen the film in its entirety that you realize the nuance of Connery’s performance especially in the scene in the woods. It’s supposed to plant a seed in your mind, not a generalization or a declarative statement. Just a little raising of the eyebrow that makes you think “Hmmmm…?” And like the seed in the back of Connery’s mind, it grows and grows until suddenly the film’s uglier and darker side reveals itself. There is something very wrong with this man. It’s sad in a way because he doesn’t want to become what he thinks is, and he desperately searches for help. Ironically the one person who might understand him, who might’ve held up a clear mirror in front of him, is the suspected child molester Baxter. Maybe that’s why he launched himself at the suspect, because he was the only one who recognised Johnson for what he had become? Or maybe because Baxter could have exposed Johnson? Or maybe, as some lines of dialogue suggest, he sees himself in the molester? I mean, he does tell a fellow officer that the suspect’s mind “was crawling with pictures of that girl. Her naked body covered in mud.” The suspect never said this, and there’s no way he could have known that. He must’ve been projecting, subconsciously at that point in the film, his own thoughts and desires.
On a technical level The Offence has no cracks or holes. Lumet brings his A game, and the film has a kind of low-key, gloomy and depressing feel emphasised by the eerie an unorthodox score that often resembles the kind of constant bleep noise that those old PAL TVs would make when a program would end. You know how sometimes you have one of those days on a weekend where you wake up, it’s pouring down with rain, everything looks grey and gloomy and you feel like all the life’s been sucked out of the world. That’s exactly the feel that The Offense captures.
Johnson’s breakdown as a result of his entertainment of disturbing and taboo thoughts implies that he identifies too closely with the kind of people he has spent his career putting behind bars. His inner turmoil is the centrepiece of the film. It’s only until you watch the whole movie that all the little things click into place, that everything makes sense. I found this movie to be a marvellous small-scaled character study of a very sick and corrupted man whose mind is driving him insane.
I was thinking about giving it an 8 out of 10. But somehow it doesn’t really feel like an 8/10 movie. I suppose because I have so many of the great Lumet pictures at an 8 and this one doesn’t measure up when stacked up with the rest that I feel uncomfortable giving this an 8. But it is truly a magnificent psychological drama. I’ll settle at 7.5.