Enjoyed this great drama and thriller dealing with the killing of seven French Jewish people during World War II. Pierre Brossard, (Michael Caine) was present during the execution of these Jewish people and after many many years pass, Pierre is still being hunted down and goes into hiding within the walls of the Catholic Church in France and he is even given financial help in order to stay protected from being killed. One day, Pierre is driving his car and is followed by a man who was out to kill him and Pierre whipped out a gun and killed this man without any problems. This picture also shows how religious Pierre is because he is always praying and asking priests to absolve him from the killing he has recently performed. Tilda Swinton, (Annemarie Livi) and Jeremy Northam, (Colonel Roux) are both assigned to investigate this case which has been reopened and they both gave great supporting roles, it looked for awhile there might be some romance between these two, but they seemed to like flirting than getting into a serious romance. Michael Caine might be getting older, but he sure carried this film on his back, right to the very end.

France in the early 1940s was hell on earth . Nazis would round up Jews and execute them in cold blood . We know this because this is how THE STATEMENT begins . What we didn't know was that London geezers participated in the cruel murders . It's so obvious you can't ignore it because the victims are told to stand against the wall as in " Cor blimey guv . If it ain't a bunch of Jewish geezers we're going to murder . And after I've murdered them I'll be popping up the apple and pears to see me old china Mary Poppins for a rendition of me old bamboo and knees up mother brown " For goodness sake if you're going to portray French people then please get someone to at least try and make a go of a French or vaguely European accent . Words fail to describe how bad the opening sequence is having Michael Caine dub over a French character . At best it's unintentionally funny , at worst it's offensive . Seeing characters being murdered due to their perceived race is no laughing matter As for the rest of the film it's beautifully shot but boring and once again I have to point out that not one single character sounds like they're French . Not only that you're never even convinced that Tilda Swinton's character is female , her dialogue seems as if it's written for a man . It's also without doubt the worst film Michael Caine has starred in for several years and his bizarre out of place performance reflects this

Pure rubbish, ridden through with stereotypical Anglo-Saxon anti-Catholic and anti-Continental bigotries and biases. Having said that, some nice scenery but that was about it. I can't believe Michael Caine made something this poor at this point in his career.And now adding more content to satisfy IMDb's requirements: Michael Caine plays an ex-Nazi French collaborator; he "acts" exceedingly nervous throughout the film helped no doubt by the liberal application of some oil-based lubricant to his face; Church officials are of course portrayed as deeply corrupt and dishonest, protecting their pro-fascist sympathies until the heat gets turned on them when naturally they sell out their own man, and so on. Again, the only reason to watch are some nice scenes of the French countryside, one could even let it run with the sound off as a kind of background living-room panoramic.

Norman Jewison's film version of a little-known Brian Moore novel posits a few interesting ideas - the role that the Catholic Church has played in sheltering Nazi collaborators from justice and whether it is right to pursue an otherwise penitent man for crimes committed fifty years earlier. Given the subject matter, a director with a record for top-notch entertainments, a first-rate cast and a script by the redoubtable Ronald Harwood, the film itself never catches fire, at best passing the time rather than actively engaging the emotions.One fault may be in accepting the high-toned, plummy British cast as French, (Tilda Swinton gives a terrible performance as the judge on the trail of Michael Caine's war criminal). On the plus side, Caine himself, Cockney accent notwithstanding, gives a superlative performance as the hunted criminal, casually out-classing everyone around him.